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A Submarine Chaser in the Adriatic 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

I 

BEING THE STORY OF THE WORK OF 
THE AMERICAN NAVY IN 

THE WORLD WAR 



BY^ . 
WILLIS J: ABBOT 

AUTHOR OF "blue JACKETS OF *61," "tHE 
STORY OF OUR NAVY," "tHE STORY OF OUR 
ARMY," "soldiers OF THE SEA," ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1921 




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COPYRI&HT, 1921 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 



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BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
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CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 
Outbreak of the world war. — Naval unpreparedness of the 
United States. — Outclassed by Germany. — Popular agita- 
tion for a mighty navy. — The German submarine cam- 
paign. — Attacks on United States ships. — Contrast be- 
tween German and British aggressions. — Defense of the 
British blockade. — Germany's violated promises. — A 
policy of ruthlessness proclaimed. — The German am- 
bassador given his passports. — ^The President's appeal 
to Congress. — Arming the merchant ships. — Culminat- 
ing German outrages. — The United States declares war 1 



CHAPTER II 

Preparing for war. — The task confronting the nation. — Our 
normal unpreparedness. — The Mexican episode. — The 
voyage of the destroyers. — " Ready now, Sir ! " — Man- 
ning the navy. — The great training camps. — The mos- 
quito fleet 36 



CHAPTER III 

Tasks before the United States navy. — Building a merchant 
fleet. — The interned German ships. — Vandalism quickly 
corrected. — The ocean ferry. — Strength of German naval 
bases. — How to beat the U-boat. — The destroyers. — First 
squadron for Europe. — Strength and weakness of the 
submarine. — The convoy. — Keeping tab on submarines. 
— Anti-submarine strategy. — Our naval base at Queens- 
town. — Trouble with Sinn Fein 61 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 



PAGE 



Protecting merchant ships. — Camouflage. — Aiming a tor- 
pedo. — The depth bomb. — The listening device or hydro- 
plane. — Submarine chasers and college crews. — The con- 
voy system. — Hostility of merchant captains. — Method 
of the convoy. — Capture of TJ-58. — Attack on the Cassin. 
— Loss of the Jacob Jones and the San Diego ... 97 



CHAPTER V 

The ferry to France. — Germany amazed. — The first trans- 
port fleet. — The base at St. Nazaire. — Loss of the An- 
tilles. — The converted yacht Alcedo. — The Tuscania and 
the President Lincoln. — The Covington and Mt. Vernon. 
— Disappearance of the Cyclops 145 



CHAPTER VI 

Our battle fleet. — Efi"orts to keep it at home. — Admiral 
Rodman's command. — Watching for the enemy. — The 
battleships at sea. — Destroyers in a storm. — The North 
Sea mine barrage. — Sweeping up the mines. — Naval 
guns ashore. — Our far-flung squadrons . . . .182 



CHAPTER VII 

The mystery ships. — Shrewdness of the Huns. — The " panic 
squad." — Exploits of Captain Gordon Campbell. — The 
" Dunraven Affair." — The one United States Mystery 
ship. — Submarine vs. submarine. — Advantage of under- 
water boats. — ^The navy that flies. — Poor record of air- 
plane construction. — ^Training aviators. — Potter's battle 
with seven planes. — Adrift in the Channel. — Hunting 
subs with planes. — Demobilizing the aerial navy. — The 
transatlantic flight 204 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

Fear of German submarine raids. — Chance for enemy enter- 
prise. — Raids on American sliipping. — Sinking of the 
Edward 8. Cole and the Hattie Dunn. — Prisoner on a 
submarine. — Extent of ravages along our coast. — ^The 
gallant fight of the Luckenhack 240 

CHAPTER IX 

The men of the Marine Corps. — " Devil Dogs " or " Leather- 
Necks." — An historic record of daring. — Character of 
the men. — Nature of their training. — Their heavy losses. 
— The great German drive. — Marines at Chateau- 
Thierry. — The battle of Belleau Wood. — A personal nar- 
rative. — Nature of the terrain. — Fighting tactics of the 
Marines. — Report of Secretary Daniels. — Sergeants John 
Quick and Dan Daly 254 

CHAPTER X 

The end of the war. — Naval conditions of the armistice. — 
The surrender at Scapa Flow. — Surrender of the Ger- 
man destroyers. — Diary of a defeated German. — Scut- 
tling the German fleet. — Our naval losses in the war. — 
Lessons of the conflict 292 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

A submarine chaser in the Adriatic . . . Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

A modern type of American destroyer, ready for business . 16 
The Oklahoma with style of camouflage to make range find- 
ing difficult 58 

US.S. Caldwell, American destroyer in Queenstown harbor 80 

A flotilla of destroyers steaming into harbor .... 94 

One of the destroyers that kept the " sea lanes " open . 94 

A camouflaged cargo ship 122 

The U.S.S. Pennsylvania 146 

Two famous ships: The President Lincoln, and President 

Wilson's ship, the George Washington, from an airplane 168 
Admiral Rodman's flagship, the New York, with the English 
fleet. This ship was present at the surrender of the 

German fleet 184 

The Nevada, one of Admiral Rodger s' squadron . . .190 
U. S. submarines alongside their " mother ship " at Bere- 

haven, Ireland 220 

A seaplane ambulance 226 

Showing the size of a naval airplane of the N.C.-4 type 236 
Germany's most useful present to Uncle Sam, the huge 

Leviathan, greatest of all the ferryboats to France . . 244 
Yankee boys of the Marines and Poilus take a lesson in sig- 
nalling . . . . 258 

As they looked on their way to Chateau-Thierry, where they 

stopped the German rush on Paris 268 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 



CHAPTER I 

Outbreak of the world war. — Naval unpreparedness of the 
United States. — Outclassed by Germany. — Popular agitation 
for a mighty navy. — The German submarine campaign. — 
Attacks on United States ships. — Contrast between German 
and British aggressions. — Defense of the British blockade. — 
Germany's violated promises. — A policy of ruthlessness pro- 
claimed. — The German ambassador given his passports. — The 
President's appeal to Congress. — Arming the merchant ships. 
— Culminating German outrages. — The United States declares 



The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 found the 
United States with a creditable, but not, as later 
events proved, an adequate navy. As a nation we 
have never been notable for either military or naval 
preparedness. With calm self-sufficiency we insist 
that we are a peaceable people, not given to wars 
like our fellows beyond seas. This delusion we hug 
despite the fact that since the adoption of our con- 
stitution in 1791 we have fought three wars with 
considerable foreign powers, and one civil war of 
unparalleled determination. A war every twenty- 
live years is about equal to the record of the most 
militaristic of nations. Between these wars we had 
our maritime tussle with France, our vigorous 
naval war with the Barbary powers, our long 

1 



2 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

drawn-out series of Indian wars, our participation 
in the expedition against the " Boxers " in 
China, and our suppression of the Philippine 
rebellion. 

Germany which brandished the mailed fist for 
nearly half a century had no such record of 
fighting. 

But the idea that we are essentially a peaceful 
nation has always so ruled the minds of our people 
that we have never in time of peace prepared for 
war. After every war we have hurriedly cast off 
all the trappings and paraphernalia of battle as 
though eager to be rid of all memorials of an un- 
pleasant job — as a man strips off his working 
clothes, bathes and puts his tasks out of mind when 
the day's work is over. It has not seemed a wise 
policy, but it has brought surprisingly little harm 
to the nation. When we have been forced unwill- 
ingly and unprepared into war our enemy has 
usually been as unprepared as we, or diplomatic 
conditions have operated for our protection. 

We had virtually no navy in 1861 but neither 
had the Southern Confederacy, We had a weak 
navy in 1898, but Spain had a weaker. 

In 1914, when war blazed forth in Europe, our 
navy was ranked by experts as either second or 
third. Great Britain, whose naval policy had for 
years been the maintenance of a fleet equal to 
those of any two continental powers combined, was 
incomparably first. Whether the United States or 
Germany came second was at that period a point 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 3 

of sharp discussion among navy experts. Later 
developments made it appear that Germany did in 
fact outclass us in 1914, as her showing in the one 
serious naval battle of the war — Jutland, May 31, 
1916 — astonished British naval authorities with 
the strength of her ships. 

But the comparative strength of the navies of 
Germany and the United States was, after all, a 
matter of merely academic interest- During the 
early months of the war it seemed to most of our 
people that there was little likelihood of the United 
States being embroiled. And when after the crime 
of the Lusitania, the neutrality of the United 
States became more and more difScult to maintain, 
it was evident that the British fleet was quite ade- 
quate to hold Germany in check on the sea. Again 
we owed our safety to some degree to the friend- 
ship of a stronger naval power, as we had when 
Admiral Diederich sought to force conclusions 
with Admiral Dewey at Manila. But there was 
too much talk at the moment of the extent of our 
obligation to Great Britain as a rampart against 
Germany. It was unpatriotic talk and without 
suflScient reason. For the American navy of that 
day, counted ship for ship, and gun for gun, ranked 
so nearly equal to that of Germany that it was 
dififlcult for experts to determine which stood first 
on paper, while our flag on the ocean stood for an 
unmarred record of victory which the Germans 
then could not equal and now may never hope to 
attain. 



4 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

Judged by peace standards the navy was effective 
and creditable. Submitted to war's tests it was at 
once shown to be lacking in many respects. Indeed 
that supreme test can seldom be sustained un- 
shaken by any organization. Great Britain's 
superb fighting force afloat met all the conditions 
Imposed upon it by the war, but from the very 
first there was constant addition to, patching up 
and supplementing of the fighting fleet. Our own 
navy, though it numbered many powerful ships 
of the first rank, was not what is called by 
professional critics a " balanced navy.'' That is to 
say, while it was strong on the battle line it lacked 
swift scouts, battle cruisers and auxiliary ships of 
every kind. Of submarines we had so few, and 
those of such limited cruising radius, as hardly to 
entitle us to rank with the great naval powers. In 
naval aviation we had made hardly a beginning. 
The personnel of the navy, though of the very high- 
est in respect to professional attainments, was 
ridiculously inadequate in numbers. Enlistments 
progressed but slowly despite the endeavors of the 
Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, to make 
service attractive and profitable even to men deter- 
mined upon ultimate return to civil life. 

The Secretary indeed, during the early years of 
his administration, was accused of being more con- 
cerned with making the service useful as a sort of 
floating college of trades and handicrafts than with 
making it an effective fighting navy. His influence 
in Congress was steadily against larger appropria- 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 5 

tions and advanced methods which would enhance 
naval efficiency. Our greatest weakness at the out- 
set of the war was declared by naval experts to 
proceed from the lack of a general staff, and from 
the inexperience of fleet commanders in maneu- 
vering large fleets. Against both of these features 
of naval reorganization Secretary Daniels set his 
face. It is proper to say that while public con- 
demnation of his position was general in the early 
days of the war, the record of efficiency made by 
the navy as the conflict progressed quieted criti- 
cism to a great extent. 

The earlier situation did not continue without 
earnest protest from a large and influential section 
of our citizens. There has always been a strong 
feeling in support of the navy in the United States, 
and although it has never been fully reflected in 
the attitude of the government it has done much to 
keep our service afloat from actual starvation. The 
period of our neutrality in the early days of the 
world war was a time of intense popular agitation 
for naval expansion. The government at Washing- 
ton was anything but responsive. It is not unfair 
to say of President Wilson and Secretary Daniels 
that they lagged far behind public sentiment in 
recognition of the need for a mighty navy. The 
Secretary, in particular, seemed to resent any ques- 
tion of the adequacy of his force as a criticism of 
himself, and devoted more energy to denunciation 
and defiance of his critics than to efforts to correct 
the evils of which they complained, and for which 



6 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

it is just to say he was not originally responsible. 
A glaring illustration of this tendency was his at- 
tack upon the Navy League which showed only too 
convincingly that he was willing to destroy one of 
the greatest influences for the upbuilding of the 
navy simply because certain of its officials refused 
to slavishly support his personal policies. 

Public men can be judged fairly only by their 
public utterances. Nothing in the attitude or ex- 
pressions of responsible members of the Wilson 
administration indicates that they felt at the begin- 
ning of the war the slightest apprehension that we 
might be dragged into the conflict, or that such 
apprehension was felt by them up to November, 
1916, when they successfully sought the re-election 
of the President on the slogan, " He kept us out of 
war." Clinging to this belief it was natural that 
they should long oppose the agitation of those who 
worked for a bigger navy in the conviction that it 
w^ould be needed. 

There was in the United States from the first a 
small body of citizens who thought our entrance 
upon the war was necessary and just. They be- 
lieved that the cynical repudiation of the " scrap of 
paper," and the invasion of Belgium constituted a 
menace to orderly and peace-loving communities 
the world over. Their numbers were increased 
when the Germans, after arrogantly publishing in 
New York newspapers an advertisement of their 
purpose to commit wholesale murder, did in fact 
torpedo the British liner, Lusitania, May 7, 1915, 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 7 

drowning 1,198 passengers, of whom 114 were 
American citizens. Three hundred and eighty 
women and children were drowned, of whom 94 
were babes in arms. 

Although those who thus early advocated the 
participation of the United States in the great 
struggle were comparatively few in numbers their 
influence was far-reaching. They made up the 
greater part of what in Europe would be called 
" the intellectuals " of the nation, and their facili- 
ties for expressing their convictions were of the 
first order. Along with their insistence that na- 
tional honor and national safety alike demanded 
our resistance to German militarism and aggres- 
sion, went constant propaganda for the increase of 
the navy. And as the ranks of the war party were 
increased by every new German submarine outrage 
involving American lives or interests, it grew fast 
and the demand for a mighty navy grew with 
it. 

By a strange paradox the submarine, which was 
Germany's only effective naval weapon, proved her 
final undoing. It alone, after the British navy had 
swept the seas clear of German surface ships made 
the name of the Hun feared along the ocean pas- 
sages and traffic lanes. But it was the ruthless and 
unlawful use of the submarine that finally brought 
the United States into the war, and set the final 
stamp of defeat upon Germany in the bloody 
battles of the Argonne and the Meuse. 

A brief account of the German submarine cam- 



8 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

paign, in so far as it affected American rights, will 
explain why this nation, devoted as it was to peace, 
was finally forced into the war. 

February 1, 1917, the German government for- 
mally declared that it would henceforward aban- 
don all restraint due to international law and 
wage submarine war ruthlessly, and without 
regard for what had been regarded as the accepted 
law of nations. Prior to that time, while profess- 
ing to be deferring to international law and the 
principles of humanity, the Germans had sunk no 
fewer than eleven American ships and caused the 
death of more than two hundred citizens of the 
United States who were exercising their undoubted 
right to travel on the high seas. The neutrality of 
the ship attacked was a matter of the least concern 
to the Huns. The Nehraskan had her name 
painted in on her sides in letters six feet high when 
the German torpedo found her. The Leelanaw was 
boarded by a crew which was satisfied of her na- 
tionality before sinking her. Most of the American 
lives lost, however, were those of passengers or 
seamen on foreign ships, usually of belligerent reg- 
istry. In such cases the protest of the United 
States government was based not upon the sinking 
of the ship, for that was within Germany's right as 
a belligerent, but upon sinking without warning 
and without opportunity being given to non-com- 
batants to make their escape. Such notice and 
such warnings are provided for in the codes of 
international law to which, prior to Germany's 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 9 

assault upon civilization, all nations had given 
their respect. 

The Germans defended their acts upon the plea 
that they were restricted by the overpowering 
might of the British navy to the use of the sub- 
marine in maintaining any power whatsoever on 
the seas. Underwater vessels while terrible in 
stealthy offense are weak and fragile in defense. If 
one paused to board a suspected vessel, fix her 
nationality and give her crew time to take to the 
boats, there was always the possibility that a wire- 
less call might bring up a destroyer which would 
put an end to the submarine in the midst of its 
work. To this plea the response of the United 
States was that the rules of international law were 
fixed and known to all nations. They could not be 
amended to suit the convenience of Germany as 
naval conditions forced upon her the use of new 
engines of war. 

Month after month the record of sinkings with- 
out warning was strung out, and each time Ameri- 
can lives were lost a new note from the State 
Department called attention to the lengthening 
list of Americans sacrificed to the war lust of a 
nation with which we were nominally at peace. 
The strategy of German diplomacy was evasive and 
dilatory — plentiful of promises but disappoint- 
ing. in performance. The soft words of Ambassador 
von Bernstorff and the German chancellery were 
more than offset by the brutality of the U-boats on 
the ocean. 



10 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

The first American ship to feel the shock of a 
German torpedo was the tanker Gulfiight, which 
though badly injured by the explosion was towed 
crippled into port. The captain of a British 
trawler who witnessed the attack wrote this ac- 
count of it: 

" We had shot our nets, and about noon we saw a large 
tank steamer coming up channel at a good pace. She was 
coming in our direction, and I soon saw her colors, the 
Stars and Stripes, at the stern — a fine big ensign it was 
and spread out like a board. When she was about two 
miles off, to my horror, I saw a submarine emerge from 
the depths and come right to the surface. There was no 
sign of life on the submarine, but she lay stationary, 
rising and falling in the trough, and I knew instinctively 
that she was watching the steamer. She had undoubtedly 
come in the same direction as that in which the steamer 
was going, and it did not take me long to realize what had 
actually happened. I took in the situation at a glance. The 
submarine had passed the Gulfiight (for that proved to be 
her name). She had deliberately increased her speed to 
lay in wait for her prey and get a sure target, rather than 
attempt to fire a torpedo when overhauling her with the 
possible chance of missing and wasting one of those ex- 
pensive weapons even on an American. 

" The submarine was painted light gray and had two 
guns; but I could not see any number. For five minutes 
she lay motionless — and then having fixed the position of 
her prey, and taken her speed into consideration, she 
slowly submerged in its direction. I knew what was com- 
ing, and it came, — a dull heavy explosion and a silence. 
And then as if to see the result of her handiwork the subma- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 11 

rine again appeared. She did not stay up long, as smoke 
was seen on the horizon, and I knew the patrols had been 
looking for her. She knew it too, and submerged. I hauled 
in my nets and proceeded at full speed to the sinking ship 
to try and save the lives of the crew. Our boat was 
launched and we went aboard. By this time the Gulflight's 
bows were down and she looked as if she would sink at any 
minute. She was badly holed in the front part. The Huns 
I thought had done their work well. 

" Ten minutes later I saw the patrol vessels coming up 
for all they were worth, and one of these vessels took off 
the crew, two of whom were drowned. The Captain of the 
Gulflight died of shock." 



It was the contention of the Germans that if time 
were given to the passengers and crew to take to 
their small boats all the provisions of international 
law had been complied with. But the precise 
measure of safety enjoyed by people crowded into 
open boats four hundred miles from shore, as often 
happened, tossed on a wintry sea, perhaps with in- 
sufficient provision of food and water is not easy 
to estimate. And as the war went on the Germans 
added to these perils by using the helpless boats 
as targets for shell-fire and even ran them down for 
mere lust of murder. 

An illustration of the German method of dealing 
with the helpless survivors of a torpedoed ship was 
furnished by the case of the Ticonderoga which was 
left behind by her convoy in September of 1918 and 
fell a speedy prey to a U-boat. She was armed but 



12 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

was able to make but slight resistance. A survivor 
told the story thus : 

"Our guns did not fire more than five or six shots, so 
quickly did the shells from the submarine strike down both 
guns and their crews. The forward gun was shot away 
nearly at once, as the submarine was not more than a mile 
away and kept coming nearer, and the after gun and its 
crew were as quickly done for. The men went to the boats 
but it was no use, as the flying shrapnel was spraying the 
decks, and men fell by scores either dead or badly wounded. 

"All of the eight boats were riddled with the flying 
fragments of shell with the exception of one, and this, 
the only one fit to put over was filled with men. One raft 
also was got away and all the time the Hun commander 
did not slacken his shell-fire. 

" Finally in desperation one man overboard swam to" 
the side of the submarine, which was less than a quarter 
of a mile away, firing almost point blank at us, and hailed 
an officer, asking him in God's name to stop. The Lieu- 
tenant who answered pointed a revolver at him saying that 
if he did not swim back he would shoot him. 

" When our boat had only seventeen in it we were 
ordered along side and made to tie up while the shelling of 
the dead and dying on the sinking ship kept up. Ques- 
tions were put' to the leader of our boat which he refused 
to answer and suddenly the submarine submerged, and 
only the parting of the rope by which we were tied fast to 
the U-boat prevented our going down with it," 

In October, 1916, an event occurred in the waters 
off Nantucket that tested sorely the discipline and 
patience of our blue jackets, and that fairly en- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 13 

raged the rapidly increasing war party in the 
United States. We had already had one visit to 
our ports of a German submarine, the Deutschland. 
This vessel was unarmed and while she brought 
over and carried back valuable cargoes and impor- 
tant dispatches on each of her voyages it seems 
probable that the chief purpose of her visits was to 
hint to the United States that, in the event of war, 
our coasts were not wholly beyond the effective 
range of the Kaiser's undersea boats. This fact 
was the more vigorously impressed upon us when 
one bright October morning the sailors on the 
light-ship at Brenton's Reef, at the entrance to 
Newport harbor, picked up a submarine steaming 
toward them from open sea. The spectacle for the 
moment aroused no especial interest, for Newport 
was then a station for United States submarines, 
and although we had not enough of these stingarees 
to count much in a real war they did occasionally 
show themselves off the harbor's mouth. But when 
on closer approach this craft broke out the red, 
black and white flag of Germany the light-ship men 
signaled excitedly to shore. 

The visitor was the armed submarine U-53, Cap- 
tain Hans Rose. We were still at peace with Ger- 
many — though in all our navy there were not a 
handful of officers who did not expect, and hope, 
soon to be at war with her — and accordingly the 
usual courtesies were exchanged between the visi- 
tors and the officers of our naval station. Captain 
Rose was most courteous and debonair. As the 



14 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

phrase has it, " butter would not melt in his 
mouth." Afterwards he said that the American 
officers seemed embarrassed. Had he said they 
seemed suspicious he would have come nearer to 
describing their emotions. 

After spending the daylight hours in port, the 
V-5S put out to sea. Early the next morning the 
wireless began bringing messages that explained 
her errand and that, perhaps, made the Newport 
naval men who had extended grudging courtesy to 
her commander regret that they had been forced 
to be courteous at all. 

First, the captain of an American steamship com- 
plained that he had been compelled to heave-to and 
show his papers to the German commander. Then 
came the news that the British steamship, West 
Point, had been sunk off Nantucket. Thereafter 
news of like character kept coming in throughout 
the day. The Strathdean, flying the British flag, 
had been sunk and twenty of her crew had been 
taken on the Nantucket light-ship. The Stephano, 
a liner bound from New York to Halifax with 
Americans aboard, had met a like fate. Her pas- 
sengers and crew, 144 people in all, were set adrift 
in small boats, forty-two miles from land. A Dutch 
and a Norwegian freighter were dealt with in the 
same fashion. In all 216 human beings were set 
adrift in open boats by the raider without com- 
punction. That no lives were sacriflced was due to 
the swift dispatch by Admiral Knight of the New- 
port destroyer flotilla to the scene immediately 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 15 

Upon learning what was going on in Nantucket 
Sound. Fourteen of the long, low, lean racers sped 
out to sea while the crowds that lined the shore 
cheered their departure — and would have cheered 
even more lustily had the errand been one of 
vengeance. 

It was no pleasant task which the Yankee officers 
and men had to discharge on that October day. 
The scene of the German's activity was far out at 
sea, beyond the three-mile limit, within which the 
sovereignty of the United States was confined by 
international law. The victims flew foreign flags 
— British, Dutch and Norwegian. It is true that 
two of these were flags of nations which, like the 
United States, were at the moment neutral. But 
our navy had no authority to defend other neutrals. 
We were at peace with Germany. To have inter- 
fered with the vandal occupation of U-53 would 
have been an act of war. There was nothing for 
our men to do but to watch with ill-concealed wrath 
while one after the other the unarmed ships went 
down before the missiles of the Hun. The 
destroyer Balch was first on the scene, and to her 
commander fell the most trying lot of all. His 
appeals to Washington by wireless went unan- 
swered, and his only opportunity to get even with 
the Hun was when he curtly, and profanely, re- 
fused to shift the position of his ship in order that 
the work of destruction might be prosecuted more 
conveniently. 

It cannot be said that our government showed 



16 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

any undue haste in resenting either the outrages 
upon its citizens, or the affronts to its dignity upon 
the high seas. Note followed note in dignified but 
too deliberate fashion from our State Department. 
The Germans in response promised amendment of 
their ways, but continually demanded that, as the 
price of their obedience to international law, the 
United States should force Great Britain to miti- 
gate the severity of the blockade which was bring- 
ing heavy privations upon the German people. In 
this policy they were aided by the German propa- 
gandists in the United States, and by politicians 
who thought they saw profit to themselves in 
" twisting the British lion's tail." Unquestionably 
there was some ground on which to complain of 
the British blockade. It caused some natural irri- 
tation in the United States, which the friends of 
Germany did their best to fan into actual hostility 
between the two Anglo-Saxon nations. Our per- 
fectly legitimate commerce with Germany was vir- 
tually destroyed. Our mails were delayed and 
made uncertain. Certain of our ships, or neutral 
ships carrying cargoes owned by Americans, were 
seized and held for months subject to the action of 
British prize courts. That some of these ships were 
actually owned by Germans, or by German sympa- 
thizers, and were sent out to provoke the British 
into some indefensible violation of the principles of 
neutrality was undeniably true. But even with 
these cases ignored there was enough of the heavy 
hand in the British enforcement of rule upon the 




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BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 17 

sea to have stung the United States into something 
more than diplomatic protest had not the enormity 
of Germany's barbarity in Belgium estranged 
American sympathy from the start, and the crime 
of the Lusitania made any sort of interposition that 
might be helpful to the Huns unthinkable. 

Moreover the blockade is recognized as a legiti- 
mate weapon of war, and is one which the United 
States, in the Civil War, employed with an un- 
flinching determination not outdone by Great 
Britain in the World War. The new methods 
which seemed revolutionary were plainly compelled 
and made legitimate by new conditions. The sub- 
marine made impossible that simple form of block- 
ade which had been enforced by men of war hover- 
ing about the entrance to an enemy's harbor. The 
blockade had to be kept far out at sea, and great 
zones established within which neutral ships were 
held subject to search and seizure. Moreover, 
goods shipped to neutral countries adjacent to the 
enemy's territory were often found to be for enemy 
use. It was vital to the success of the blockade 
that this form of evasion should be checked. Den- 
mark, Holland and the Scandinavian countries en- 
joyed practically uninterrupted communication 
with Germany, and the exports of the United States 
to these countries leaped to gigantic figures as the 
blockade closed the German ports. Interference 
with ostensibly legitimate shipments to these coun- 
tries led to extreme irritation in both the country 
of the shipper and that of the consignee. But here 



18 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

again the United States was stopped from effective 
protest by the record of its own blockading prac- 
tice in the Civil War. At that period the British 
port of Nassau in the Bahamas, and the Mexican 
town of Matamoras were the favorite points to 
which goods were shipped with the Confederacy 
for their ultimate destination. But the federal 
cruisers never hesitated to seize ships and cargoes 
engaged in this traffic and our own courts declared 
the seizures lawful. The ship carrying the goods 
to the neutral port and the blockade runner taking 
them thence to the enemy port were described by 
a United States judge as " planks of the same 
bridge." 

This doctrine was maintained by Great Britain 
in her regulation of shipping bound to Dutch, 
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian ports. Germany 
protested bitterly. In their response to the pro- 
tests of the United States against unlawful sub- 
marine aggressions the German diplomats con- 
stantly declared British blockading methods 
unlawful, and demanded that our government 
apply to them the same strict scrutiny to which 
it subjected German endeavors to break the block- 
ade by submarine attack. But their protests 
availed nothing. 

If all other considerations were set aside, if 
German methods of warfare had not so outraged 
the American sense of humanity, and if the instinc- 
tive unity of the English-speaking peoples had been 
a weaker bond, still the fact that German 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 19 

submarine warfare took the lives of our people 
while the British blockade only imperiled their 
profits, which might be recovered later, made the 
German effort to offset the former by the latter 
futile. 

At one time it appeared that the protests of our 
State Department had been effective. The German 
government solemnly undertook to attack no more 
liners without due warning, and time to put pas- 
sengers and crew in safety. Looking back upon the 
temper of the time, after the lapse of years, it seems 
doubtful whether, had this promise been faithfully 
kept, it would have averted the entrance of the 
United States upon the war. And it seems much 
more doubtful whether the failure of the United 
States to go to the aid of the allied nations in their 
war upon German autocracy and militarism would 
have been a fortunate thing either for this country 
or the world at large. 

That, however, is mere futile speculation. The 
actual happening was that Germany repudiated 
the agreement precisely as she had repudiated the 
treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. 
Late in January of 1917 she proclaimed to the 
world that, beginning February 1st, her submarine 
warfare would be ruthless, restrained no longer by 
any consideration for neutral opinion or the rules 
of international law, and that she would " meet the 
illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly pre- 
venting in a zone around Great Britain, France, 
Italy and in the eastern Mediterranean all naviga- 



20 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

tion, that of neutrals included, and to England 
from and to France, etc. All ships met within that 
zone will be sunk." 

Defiant as it was of civilized opinion the world 
over, and certain as it was to bring the United 
States into the war, this action on the part of Ger- 
many was probably the only course left to her. It 
was a counsel of desperation indeed, but her case 
was desperate. If she had adopted it a year earlier 
there is, as we shall see later in the course of this 
narrative, every probability that she would have 
won the war. On the surface of the seas Great 
Britain was invincible. On land the gallant armies 
of France, Britain and Belgium though often sorely 
pressed and even for the moment defeated in battle, 
were nevertheless holding the enemy in check and 
probably could have done so until the time of Ger- 
man exhaustion. But the British Isles were the 
vulnerable point of the British Empire. Densely 
populated, and with agriculture neglected for 
more than a century while the land was held fallow 
for the purposes of sport, they could no longer raise 
food sufficient for the support of their people. It 
was the saying at the outset of the war that Eng- 
land was never more than three weeks away from 
starvation. Though possibly an exaggeration the 
phrase did express substantially the precarious 
state of England if the steady stream of ships 
bringing food to her people from the ends of the 
earth should be stopped. 

This was what the Germans undertook to do with 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 21 

their submarine campaign. Their statisticians 
estimated that sinking a million tons a month of 
ships bound for the British Isles would starve Eng- 
land into subjection. They never quite attained 
that figure, but even falling short of it they had 
made much progress toward their end when the 
interposition of the American navy blocked their 
submarine campaign and saved England. Had 
they had a year in which to pursue the policy of 
ruthlessness instead of only a few months the 
story of the world might not have read as it does 
today. 

February 3rd the President appeared before 
Congress in joint session and reported that the 
passports of the German ambassador, Count von 
Bernstorff, had been sent him and the American 
ambassador to Berlin, James W. Gerard, had been 
recalled. The President still professed " inveterate 
confidence on his [my] part in the sobriety and 
prudent foresight " of Germany's purposes, but an- 
nounced his intention, should that confidence prove 
misplaced, of coming to Congress " to ask that 
authority be given me to use any means that may 
be necessary for the protection of our seamen and 
our people in the prosecution of their peaceful and 
legitimate errands on the high seas." 

How far the President's " inveterate confidence " 
was justified was shown by the fact that in the first 
eighteen days of February the Germans sunk 117 
ships with a tonnage of 245,140. Of these, seven 
were American ships and between twenty-five and 



22 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

thirty American lives were lost. In order that they 
might sink their million tons of ships a month and 
reduce England to abject surrender through star- 
vation, the German rulers were perfectly willing to 
risk provoking the United States into entrance 
upon the war. Indeed it was evident that they 
scorned this nation's armed power, knowing that 
we had no army and not believing for a moment 
that we could create one and ferry it across three 
thousand miles of ocean in season to have any effect 
upon the fortunes of the war. Developments after 
the war showed that this was the conviction of the 
Kaiser and his closest advisers. 

In the first fury of the ruthless campaign Ameri- 
can interests suffered severely. On February 3rd, 
the U-53 sunk the American steamship Housatonic, 
and on the 13th the schooner Lyman M. Law met 
a similar fate. An American missionary went 
down with the French steamer, Athos, near Malta. 
Two American women, Mrs. Mary E. Hoy and her 
daughter, died miserably in an open boat after the 
sinking of the Cunard liner, Laconia, February 
27th. The story of the sufferings of these women, 
as told by the Rev. Dunstan Sargent, throws a 
bright light upon the German contention that life- 
boats were " a place of safety " as contemplated by 
international law : 

" Mrs. Hoy died in the arms of her daughter. Her 
body slipped off into the sea out of her daughter's weak- 
ened arms. The heart-broken daughter succumbed a few 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 23 

minutes afterward, and her body fell over the side of the 
boat as we were tossed by the icy waves. 

"In icy water, up to her knees for two hours, the 
daughter all the time bravely supported her aged mother, 
uttering words of encouragement to her. From the start 
both were violently seasick, which, coupled with the cold 
and exposure, gradually wore down their courage. Both 
were brave women. 

" The first to die in our boat was Irvine Robinson, of 
Toronto. After his body had been consigned to the sea 
we tossed about for an hour getting more and more water 
until the gunwales were almost level with the sea. Then 
Cedric P. Ivatt, of London, who was not physically strong, 
succumbed in the arms of his fiancee, who was close beside 
him, trying in vain to keep him warm by throwing her 
wealth of hair about his neck." 

The sinking of the Laconia was the climax of 
German aggression. Floyd Gibbons, a remarkably 
able and gallant correspondent for the Chicago 
Tribune, who was aboard the ship, and wrote a 
most graphic cable account of her destruction, says 
that as he stepped ashore from the small boat in 
which he had been saved an English friend who 
had been on the ship met him and slapped him on 
the shoulder with the remark, " Well, old Casus 
Belli, is this your blooming overt act? " 

That is precisely what it proved to be, although 
it did not immediately result in the declaration of 
war that it made inevitable. The indomitable pur- 
pose of the administration to keep out of war still 
controlled. Another act in the comedy of delay 
and vacillation had yet to be played. 



24 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

President Wilson had, on February 26, 1917, 
asked of Congress authority to arm merchant ships. 
The session was drawing to a close and a little 
group of pacifist senators, by the methods of the 
filibuster, prevented action on the resolution be- 
fore adjournment. However, the President pro- 
ceeded to arm the ships nevertheless by executive 
act. The task of providing guns and gunners fell 
upon the navy and was no light undertaking. The 
guns used were from four to six-inch caliber, two 
to each ship, mounted bow and stern. These guns 
had, of course, to be taken from ships of the regular 
navy, and the need was immediate for their early 
replacement as the drift of the nation toward war 
was only too apparent. But while the supply of 
guns was strictly limited, that of gunners was even 
more so. The navy could not be stripped of its 
trained men, and indeed the number of men who 
could be trusted to make a winning shot at a peri- 
scope four inches in diameter at a distance of a 
mile or more was decidedly small. In the end the 
bulk of each gun's crew was made up of men from 
the naval training schools ashore — land lubbers 
still, but in the way of becoming sailors. The petty 
officers in command, chief gunner's mates, boat- 
swain's mates and masters at arms were veterans 
taken from the fleet. As a matter of fact the arm- 
ing of our merchant ships was chiefly valuable for 
its moral effect on the enemy. While there were 
many rumors of pitched battles between ships thus 
armed and submarines the official records contain 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 25 

no case of a U-boat actually destroyed by merchant 
gunners. But the fact that our ships were known 
to be armed compelled caution on the part of the 
enemy. He could no longer come boldly to the sur- 
face and destroy his prey with shell-tire, for the 
guns on the merchantmen were as heavy as those 
carried by the average submarine. He was there- 
fore compelled to use his torpedoes, which could be 
discharged without coming to the surface. But 
these were expensive weapons, and the number 
allotted to the average submarine was only from 
ten to twelve. When they were exhausted he was 
compelled to return to his home port for more. 
This, rather than his supply of gasoline, fixed the 
cruising radius of the U-boat, and any device or 
system which compelled the Hun to exhaust his 
supply of torpedoes greatly lessened the menace of 
his submarine campaign. It was in accomplishing 
this, rather than in victories gained in actual 
battle, that the arming of the merchant ships 
proved effective. But the men hastily called to this 
service speedily became real blue jackets. The 
gun's crew of the Acteon, sunk by torpedo off Cape 
Finisterre in November, 1917, worked their way 
without a commissioned officer, and without a com- 
pass in a small open boat, for eleven days, finally 
making the coast of Spain with three men dead and 
all nearly exhausted. 

While the work of arming the ships went on and 
the nation hung hesitant on the brink of war, the 
German propaganda went on apace, even though 



26 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

the Ambassador had been sent about his business. 
The German government had set up the doctrine 
that any merchant ship that attempted self-defense 
became thereby a pirate, and her officers and crew, 
if captured, were not prisoners of war but were 
subject to the death penalty for piracy. In one 
case, that of the British Captain Fryatt, who ran 
down a U-boat and was subsequently captured, this 
penalty was actually inflicted. German propa- 
gandists so worked upon the sympathies and fears 
of Congress that a resolution warning American 
citizens against traveling upon armed merchant- 
men of their own nationality narrowly escaped 
passage by the Senate. Its passage would have 
been an act of national poltroonery, for while a 
nation is itself at peace its people have a right to 
travel where they will on the high seas in vessels 
flying their flag. To curtail this right is to admit 
the impotence of the flag to protect them. 

The period immediately following the proclama- 
tion of ruthless submarine warfare was one of deep 
mortification to those Americans who had been 
proud of their country's record upon the sea and 
were hopeful of seeing its past glories eclipsed in 
the future. Our ships clung to our ports like 
chickens to the mother hen when the hawk's 
shadow falls black upon the barnyard. The Ger- 
man threat, plus the delay of our own government 
in furnishing arms and arranging for marine in- 
surance had the effect of a blockade. Mails to 
Europe went forth only when a British ship was 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 27 

prepared to carry them, Germany had patroniz- 
ingly ofifered to permit one American ship, display- 
ing colors designed by Gerraans, to sail once a 
week, along a specified course to a British port 
selected by the enemy. The oifer, which was char- 
acteristically German in its arrogance, enraged 
every red-blooded American who read it. But there 
was long and maddening delay before we made the 
only suitable retort — that of sending our ships 
when and where wished. After this action was 
taken London Punch printed a cartoon which was 
balm to those of our people who had chafed under 
our long and supine inactivity. The Kaiser was 
depicted as saying haughtily to Uncle Sam, " You 
may go once a week to Falmouth." To which the 
latter, hands in pockets and cigar at a defiant angle 
retorts, " And you may go, all the time, to hell ! " 
There was real enthusiasm on the water fronts 
when, on February 10th, two American ships, the 
Orleans and the Rochester, sailed, unarmed, in de- 
fiance of the German threat. Both arrived in 
safety at their French destinations and were 
warmly welcomed. March 12th the Campania, first 
of the armed merchantmen sailed, and thereafter 
our ships went out with saucy rifled cannon peer- 
ing over their quarters as fast as the guns and 
gunners could be found. One of the earliest was 
the Aztec, which was torpedoed at dead of night. 
Her people realized that the Germans would make 
special efforts to get the earliest of the American 
armed ships, and her gunners were steadily on the 



28 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

alert. One submarine was sighted by day and 
speedily submerged when its captain caught sight, 
through his conning tower, of the guns on the mer- 
chantmen being trained on his frail craft. But 
when the fatal blow was dealt the gunners had no 
chance to use their weapons and the ship had no 
chance for its life. 

The Aztec was running at full speed, through a 
dark night, with all lights out. Now while it is 
easy to say " all lights out " it is harder to enforce 
such a condition. The work of the ship must go on 
below with lights burning. The best that can be 
done is to exercise all possible vigilance to see that 
no port is opened by the merest crack. It is amaz- 
ing to a landsman to know how far the slightest 
gleam of light is visible at sea. During the war it 
was discovered by actual test that the red coal on 
the end of a lighted cigar was visible for more than 
a mile. Once a ship's printer, working late at 
night, opened his port for just an instant to get a 
whiff of fresh air. As luck would have it a German 
submarine was in the vicinity, saw the gleam and 
let slip a torpedo that destroyed the ship. 

It was some such momentary relaxation of com- 
plete caution that led to the Aztec's end. About 
9.30 at night the chief engineer noticed that the 
light in the wireless cabin was not completely 
obscured and went thither to warn the operator. 
The two men were standing near the rail talking 
about the matter, and wondering whether any evil 
would come of it- At that very moment a torpedo 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 29 

struck the rail immediately below them. The sea- 
man was thrown high in air, falling into the sea 
and was never again seen. The wireless operator 
was thrown nearly thirty feet, and a sailor stand- 
ing near had his head blown off. Though badly 
wounded the wireless man recovered consciousness 
and ran to the wireless room with the intention of 
sending out an S.O.S. appeal. But the apparatus 
was too badly wrecked. It was evident that the 
ship was lost and the order was given to abandon 
her. The sea was running high and the first life- 
boat lowered was broken against the ship's side 
and the seven men in it thrown into the sea. A 
second boat got away safely. The ship meantime 
was sinking rapidly. The boat assigned to the crew 
of naval gunners aboard was the last to leave the 
vessel, taking in it the captain and the navy lieu- 
tenant in command of the gun's crew. But this 
craft scarcely got clear of the ship when the Aztec 
sank. It had been less than seven minutes since 
the torpedo had found its mark. 

Of all on the ship only the six in the last boat 
were rescued, they being picked up by the French 
patrol boat, Jeanne d'Arc. Among the men lost 
was John Eopolucci, a boatswain's mate of the 
United States navy and the first man of our armed 
service to lose his life in the war. 

It was not until after the United States had 
actually declared war that the first exchange of 
shots between the navy crew of an armed merchant- 
man and a German U-boat occurred. The Ameri- 



30 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

can was the armed freighter Mongolian, Captain 
Emery Rice. One six-inch gun and two of four 
inches each, with crews of blue jackets under com- 
mand of Lieutenant Bruce Ware, U.S.N., guarded 
the ship against Germany's underwater ijrowlers 
as she steamed sturdily through the seas towards 
Liverpool. The war zone reached, the watch was 
redoubled. From every top and from the peak of 
the bow keen-eyed men peered out across the sea 
under which deadly peril was known to lurk. 
When within twenty-four hours of port, at half- 
past five in the afternoon, the lookout's voice rang 
out: 

" Submarine ! Two points off the port bow ! " 
Almost dead ahead a periscope was thrust up 
above the surface of the water like a king cobra 
poised to strike. The submarine was evidently 
waiting for its victim to reach a more favorable 
position before launching its thunderbolt. But 
whether the watcher at the periscope could see the 
guns, or instinctively sensed his danger, he waited 
no longer. As the blue jackets, responsive to the 
call of their commander, sprang to their guns the 
periscope sank slowly out of sight. The ship leaped 
forward as the engineers put on full speed, and tore 
through the water over the spot where the spying 
tube had vanished, but no shock told of striking 
the lurking hull beneath. The German, however, 
was plucky. He had no thought of abandoning the 
prey he had marked down. Soon a shout from a 
lookout called attention to the periscope breaking 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 31 

water about one thousand yards directly abeam. 
This time Fritz was in a most advantageous posi- 
tion to let fly his deadly charge. But he was not 
given time. Almost instantly the six-inch gun 
spoke out and the periscope flew into splinters. A 
great fountain of water rose into the air where the 
eye of the German recently had been, and broad, 
slick patches of oil spread out over the waves. 
There was no doubt about the hit, but the Mon- 
golian did not stop to verify it. In accordance with 
regulations she fled that neighborhood with all 
possible speed. But that she did in fact destroy 
the enemy has been generally conceded, and the 
frequency with which the same ship was attacked 
in her later voyages suggests that the Germans 
recognized in her a successful enemy and were bent 
on revenge. 

The affair of the Mongolian occurred subsequent 
to the declaration of war, and it happened that 
prior to that declaration no actual combat between 
the armed merchantmen and the German U-boats 
took place. But the very fact that the ocean 
swarmed with our ships, armed by regular navy 
forces and ready to defend themselves made war 
inevitable. The President and his spokesmen 
talked peace, but every department of the govern- 
ment was getting ready for the inevitable conflict. 
The actual declaration was forced, not by an attack 
upon an American ship but by the destruction of 
foreign ships upon which the lives of American 
passengers were lost. In one day, March 19, 1918, 



32 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

three large American ships, City of Memphis, 
Illinois and the Vigilancia were torpedoed and 
sunk — though we were still at peace with Germany. 
Between the notice of the beginning of the ruthless 
submarine campaign and the 5th of April, between 
twenty-five and thirty American lives were lost to 
German attack. As the report of the House Com- 
mittee on Foreign Affairs phrased it : " This is war. 
War waged by the Imperial German government 
upon this country and its people." 

There was never a government more reluctant to 
declare war. The President had just been elected 
after a campaign in which stress had been laid upon 
his endeavors for the maintenance of peace. A ma- 
jority of both houses of Congress was of his party, 
and held opinions in accord with his views. But 
German aggressions seemed to leave no oppor- 
tunity for a peaceful settlement. At the time 
Americans wondered at the fatuity which led the 
Teutonic powers, in this critical moment, to fairly 
nag this nation into war. To us the outcome of 
our entrance upon the struggle seemed the inevi- 
table defeat of Germany even when allowance was 
made for the unavoidable delay which must precede 
our actual participation in battle. 

The Hun, however, was not so rash or arrogant 
as superficially appeared. His generals were able, 
better than we, to estimate the stubbornness of the 
defense of the allies on land, and the staying quali- 
ties of their own troops. The world learned, after 
the peace when the memoirs of von Tirpitz, Luden- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 33 

dorff and other great figures in Germany were pub- 
lished, that notwithstanding great successes on 
land the Germans had come to despair of conclu- 
sive victory there. Their allies were weakening, 
the relentless blockade was breaking down the 
health and destroying the morale of their peo- 
ple at home, and the obstinacy of the resist- 
ance of the Allies gave effect on every front 
to the slogan of the French at Verdun — " They 
shall not pass ! " 

So they looked to the sea. On its surface they 
were impotent. The British had swept their mer- 
chant fleet from the face of the waters, and now 
held their men-of-war remorselessly penned in their 
fortified harbors. But under water Germany was 
supreme. Prevision to some extent, but even more 
hurried construction enforced and stimulated by 
war conditions, had placed her first among sub- 
marine powers. But great as was her underwater 
fleet it counted for little in actual warfare. After 
the first stroke of Weddigen, by which three British 
cruisers were sunk in a scant two hours, the sub- 
marines accomplished little against the British 
navy. But the fact that the British Isles were de- 
pendent for food upon ships coming from all parts 
of the world did seem to open an opportunity to 
win victory with the submarine. Could Britain be 
starved into subjection the whole alliance would 
fall. If the submarines could sink enough ships 
Britain would be starved. If they could be sunk 
within a brief enough time the United States could 



34 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

not make preparations for an effective entrance 
upon the war, and in that event with the British 
fleet surrendered to Germany she need not fear the 
United States- 
Such was the cold logic which led to Germany's 
flouting the United States and compelling our en- 
trance upon the war. In a later chapter I shall 
show how nearly accurate were the German com- 
putations, and how close their submarine campaign 
came to accomplishing all that was claimed for it. 
But the first thing it did accomplish was the en- 
rollment of the United States among Germany's 
determined foes for on the night of April 6, 1917, 
the Congress declared war existing with but a few 
dissentient votes in Senate and House. 

The words with which the President closed his 
appeal for such action must ever stand as express- 
ing the sentiment and the purpose of the American 
people in its entrance upon this conflict : 

" It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of 
the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing 
you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and 
eacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this 
great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and 
disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in 
the balance. But the right is more precious than peace and 
we shall fight for the things which we have always carried 
nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those 
who submit to authority to have a voice in their own gov- 
ernments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for 
a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 35 

peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations an(i 
make the world itself at last free. 

" To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our for- 
tunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, 
with the pride of those who know that the day has come 
when America is privileged to spend her blood and her 
might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness 
and the peace which she has treasured. 

" God helping her she can do no other," 



CHAPTER II 

Preparing for war. — The task confronting the nation. — Our normal 
unpreparedness. — The Mexican episode. — The voyage of the 
destroyers. — "Ready now, Sir!" — Manning the navy. — The 
great training camps. — The mosquito fleet. 

Having declared war the United States took up 
in grim earnest the task of waging it. There were 
not lacking among our people those who disbelieved 
that we could do Germany much harm. People 
said scoffingly that, under existing conditions, a 
war between Germany and the United States would 
be like a duel which Abraham Lincoln once sug- 
gested for two quarreling politicians — " with axes 
at forty-five yards distance." 

The task of raising, arming, drilling and trans- 
porting an army big enough to take rank with the 
forces of the embattled nations seemed to many im- 
possible of accomplishment in season to affect the 
result. The German people believed implicitly that 
this was true. The German government, though 
perhaps not quite so confident, nevertheless hoped 
that the United States had come in too late. At the 
moment the war on land gave every indication of 
being a stalemate, and the Germans believed that 
if the United States had, in fact, come in too tardily 
for its troops to turn that deadlock into an allied 
victory, the German submarines would starve Eng- 
land into subjection. 

36 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 37 

The destructive work of these sinister engines 
of destruction had by this time, in fact, become 
more menacing than the general public suspected. 
The British Admiralty knew it and sedulously con- 
cealed the facts from the world lest black despair 
seize upon the Allies. The German Admiralty like- 
wise knew it, and loudly and exultantly proclaimed 
their impending triumph, but the world opposed 
to them repudiated their statistics and derided 
their claims. After the war had ended in victory 
for the Allies, Admiral Sims, U.S.N., who had been 
sent to England by the President when our en- 
tanglement became inevitable, told of the gloomy 
apprehensions of the British in a series of articles 
published in World's Work. He was talking with 
Admiral Lord Jellicoe the day of his arrival in 
London : 

" ' Yes/ Jellicoe said as quietly as though he were dis- 
cussing the weather, and not the future of the British 
Empire, ' it is impossible for us to go on with the war if 
these losses continue.' 

" ' What are you doing about it ? ' I asked. 

" ' Everything that we can. We are increasing our anti- 
submarine forces in every possible way. We are using every 
possible craft we can find with which to fight submarines. 
We are building destroyers, trawlers and other like craft 
as fast as we can. But the situation is very serious and 
we shall need all the help we can get.' 

" ' It looks as though the Germans were winning the 
war,' I remarked. 

" ' They will win unless we can stop these losses, and stop 
them soon/ the Admiral replied." 



38 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

This discouraging outlook was kept carefully 
secret in naval circles and the work of developing 
our navy in order to meet the great emergency was 
pressed with the utmost vigor. It was perhaps not 
altogether fortunate that the American people were 
not informed as to the gravity of the situation at 
the time it was existing, for knowledge then might 
have impressed them with the folly of a govern- 
mental policy which failed to keep the nation at all 
times provided with a navy adequate to its own 
defense. 

We had no such navy at the moment, although 
we were on the brink of war with Germany. Sup- 
pose the German anticipations — which Lord Jelli- 
coe admitted were not wholly baseless — had been 
realized. England facing starvation would have 
been forced to surrender. The very first demand — 
and an eminently proper demand under the circum- 
stances — on the part of Germany would have been 
for the surrender of the British navy. Possessed of 
that enormous force, in addition to her own fleet, 
and with a quarrel with the United States ready to 
hand, what more natural than that Germany 
should attempt to recoup some of her enormous 
war expenditures by a raid on this country? Such 
an adventure, viewed now in the light of history, 
had every chance of success. Not all the expendi- 
tures that could be made in the course of a century 
on a mighty navy would equal the tribute which 
an enemy fleet could exact if it had our Atlantic 
seaboard at its mercy for one month. That the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 39 

peril was so narrowly averted in 1918 affords every 
reason why this nation should prevent, at any cost, 
its possible recurrence. 

The immediate duty at that time, however, was 
to make up for past neglect by building up the navy 
to effective proportions. To this end every govern- 
mental energy was exerted, every resource of men 
and money employed. Fortunately a start had been 
made for the growing menace of German aggres- 
sion, and the persistent agitation of friends of the 
navy had led Congress in 1916 to make the largest 
appropriation for naval purposes ever made by any 
legislature in time of peace. For the first time a 
continuing building programme, to extend over a 
term of three years, was established. In all, 157 
vessels were provided for, 10 being battleships, 6 
battle cruisers, 50 destroyers, 9 fleet submarines, 
58 coast submarines and 13 auxiliaries. Great as 
these provisions were, and large as was the increase 
in personnel called for by the law, it was all out- 
done by our naval development after war had 
actually been declared. 

It is pertinent to note here, as illustrative of the 
difficulty of creating a navy in haste, that none of 
the capital ships authorized by this law was fin- 
ished in time to serve in the war upon Germany. 

Even before this congressional recognition of the 
growing need for a larger navy the men of the serv- 
ice afloat had a chance to experience real action, 
hot while it lasted, but happily brief. 

During the first year of the World War there was 



40 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

trouble in Mexico. There has always been trouble 
in Mexico since the time of Diaz, and there are 
many who think that there always will be trouble 
there until the United States takes control of that 
turbulent people. By 1914 a series of revolutions 
had resulted in making a picturesque old Indian, 
Victoriano Huerta, provisional president of a so- 
called republic which was in fact a military dic- 
tatorship. 

Huerta had never been recognized by the United 
States. President Wilson had declined to extend 
the right hand of offtcial fellowship to one whose 
hand was stained with the blood of his predecessor, 
and whose rule was founded upon assassination. 
Naturally Huerta and his Mexican supporters were 
aggrieved. With them political assassination was 
not taken so seriously as in Washington. The 
Mexican ruler showed his resentment by studied 
affronts to the United States, and his followers 
manifested theirs by mobbing our citizens, and 
especially our seamen, whenever opportunity of- 
fered. Sailors from our ships in Mexican ports 
were insulted and attacked. At Tampico the pay- 
master of the U.S.S. Dolphin, with his boat's crew 
was arrested and marched publicly through the 
streets to the calaboose. At Vera Cruz an orderly 
in full uniform, sent ashore for the ship's mail, 
was likewise arrested. The President finally deter- 
mined to take cognizance of what could only be 
construed as a policy of deliberate insult, and ac- 
cordingly demanded an apology and a salute to the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 41 

flag. The latter Huerta refused to grant — inciden- 
tally it may be noted that it never was granted — 
and the North Atlantic fleet was sent to Vera Cruz. 

The whole naval programme in the operations 
that followed was carried out with a celerity which 
spoke highly for the efficiency of the service. 
Within eighteen hours of the issuance of the orders 
the vessels of the fleet were steaming out of the 
various Atlantic stations to rendezvous at sea, with 
the Arkansas as Admiral Badger's flagship. At 
the Newport training station one thousand men 
were ready to leave for Mexico fifteen minutes after 
the receipt of the telegraphed orders. One battle- 
ship took in 1,800 tons of coal, provisions for one 
thousand men for six weeks, all other necessary 
supplies, rounded up oflflcers and men ashore on 
leave and was ready to sail in twelve hours. 

A German ship, loaded with supplies for Huerta, 
was known to be on the way to Vera Cruz. While 
the United States was at peace with both Mexico 
and Germany, the relations between the countries 
were decidedly strained. It was not desirable that 
Huerta should receive another large supply of arms 
and ammunition. On the other hand to seize the 
ship would add a new complication to the German 
imbroglio already menacing. In this dilemma it 
was thought wiser to take a risk with Mexico — that 
being the weaker power. Ostensibly as part of the 
discipline to which the Mexicans had made them- 
selves subject by their attacks upon our sailors it 
was determined to seize Vera Cruz and the custom 



42 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

house at that port. This would of course enable 
the United States authorities to refuse permission 
for the German arms to be landed there. 

It may be noted in passing that the Mexicans 
and Germans very readily saw through this rather 
transparent device and landed the arms through 
another port. So to that extent the policy of the 
United States was a failure, as it proved to be in 
the matter of the salute. 

But the navy was not concerned with policies or 
reasons for action. Its part was to act. And how- 
ever futile the occupation of Vera Cruz may have 
proved politically, as a naval maneuver it was car- 
ried out smartly and with swift efficiency. 

The full fleet had not arrived in the harbor of 
Vera Cruz when, on April 21, 1914, Admiral 
•Fletcher decided to land and take possession of the 
custom house lest the German ship Yperanga, 
which was already in the harbor, should attempt to 
land her cargo of arms. 

It was not an easy task, for the Mexicans had 
more than six hundred regular soldiers in the town, 
besides the cadets of their naval academy — who, 
when the time came, put up a gallant fight with all 
the courage of boyhood. The authorities had also 
armed all the convicts in the various penal institu- 
tions of the town, so that its streets were crowded 
with an armed and lawless mob. Serious defense 
of the city against the American fleet was of course 
impossible. Any one of the great battleships could 
easily have reduced the town to a mass of ruins. 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 43 

But this was not the desire of Admiral Fletcher, 
whose orders were merely to seize and hold the 
custom house. Accordingly even the ancient and 
dilapidated fortress of San Juan de Ulloa, stand- 
ing in the harbor half a mile from the shore, was 
ignored. Its guns were impotent against the fleet 
and the handful of troops that garrisoned it might 
well be left for further consideration. The landing 
of our blue jackets and marines, however, might 
well have been made a desperate enterprise had the 
Mexican resistance been more determined. For 
the beach sloped gently down to a depth of water 
sufficient to float the boats, and the landing parties 
had to leap overboard into the water up to their 
waists and wade ashore in the face of the enemy's 
fire. The resistance to the landing was not, how- 
ever, serious. It is probable that the Mexican gen- 
eral was somewhat in doubt as to the extent to 
which his chief, Huerta, desired to proceed in of- 
fering futile resistance to the overwhelming power 
of the fleet. Accordingly the landing parties of 
blue jackets and marines from the Florida and 
Utah secured a foothold on the beach without seri- 
ous loss. In all, about two hundred marines and 
six hundred sailors were landed on the first day. 

The next day, however, the Mexicans made up 
their minds to fight, and a galling fire was opened 
on the Americans in the streets of the town. Vera 
Cruz is a typical Spanish-American city. Its 
streets are narrow, the houses heavily built of 
masonry with parapeted flat roofs and deeply em- 



44 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

brasured windows. They afforded the best possible 
cover for irregular forces, and w^ere swarming with 
riflemen, both of the army and civilians — though in 
that country and at that time there were few 
civilians who had not had some experience in at 
least guerrilla warfare. 

By this time the remainder of the Atlantic fleet, 
and with it the battalion of marines stationed at 
Panama, had reached the harbor. The " leather- 
necks " were landed at once so that by noon there 
were about two thousand marines in the town, in 
addition to a large force of sailors. Thereupon the 
work of cleaning up the town began. 

It was a good hot fight, for hopeless as was the 
Mexican cause the defenders of the town put up a 
gallant resistance. They had a plentiful supply of 
machine guns, and every roof and window seemed 
to conceal snipers. The sailors suffered heavily, as 
they were led in charges through the open streets 
exposed to the full force of the machine gun fire 
and the incessant sniping from the rooftops. The 
marines employed different tactics. They have 
their own way of fighting, and it is usually effective 
as we shall see when we come to the story of their 
great battle at Belleau Wood. Here, instead of 
exposing themselves in the open streets, they went 
through the walls from one house to the next with 
pickaxes. The walls were often three feet thick, 
but that did not long delay them, and once they 
entered a new house they left none of its defenders 
to continue the fight. With a machine gun at one 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 45 

end of a street to keep it clear of any Mexican re- 
inforcements, and to mow down fugitives that fled 
from the houses, the marines would start in at the 
first house and break their way through to the end 
of the block. As soon as the first house was taken 
men were sent up to the roof to engage the Mexi- 
cans there and pursue them from roof to roof until 
the whole street was cleared. The enemy was thus 
assailed from above and below and by afternoon the 
marines had cleaned up all the part of the town 
allotted to them with the loss of but one man killed. 
The sailors in the streets suffered more seriously. 
Meanwhile the great fleet, that might have blown 
the town into dust with a few broadsides, lay silent 
in the offing only opening fire when the Mexican 
naval cadets began a lively fire from their academy 
upon the advancing Americans. Six shots from the 
Panther ended this resistance. After two days' 
fighting the town was wholly in American control 
with a loss of 19 killed and 70 wounded on our part, 
and on the side of the enemy very much larger. 

Our naval forces held the town for a time, clean- 
ing it up, putting in sewage and sanitary devices, 
and greatly improving it as a place of habitation. 
Then the army was installed in occupation and the 
marines retired. The whole episode was rather a 
mysterious one in American history. The salute to 
the flag, which nominally it was intended to en- 
force, was never paid. The cargo of German arms 
was landed at another port. Nineteen of our men 
and many more Mexicans were sacrificed for no- 



46 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

body ever knew what. Huerta, who had flouted our 
authority, was overthrown by another Mexican 
revolution shortly after, and our troops were with- 
drawn. His successor, Carranza, was equally hos- 
tile to the United States, but during his regime, 
which was likewise ended by revolution and assas- 
sination, the United States forces were too busy 
elsewhere to be used to maintain our dignity in 
Mexico. Indeed while the fleet was tied up at Vera 
Cruz in 1914 there was a good deal of apprehension 
in the navy lest it should be more needed on our 
own coasts and found wanting. 

After the Vera Cruz incident there came for the 
navy a period of quiescence. Across the Atlantic 
the fires of war were blazing brightly, but those 
who governed our nation were firmly convinced 
that the conflagration would never menace us. If 
officers of the navy foresaw more clearly than their 
civilian superiors the danger that lay awaiting us 
they prudently concealed their forebodings, or if 
they expressed them were subjected to mortifying 
discipline. The Secretary of the Navy himself, 
after the European war was fairly under way, de- 
clared in his report to the President that the navy 
needed no more men, and gradually " froze out " of 
office his chief adviser, the Aid for Operations, 
Admiral Fiske, because he urged too strenuously 
upon Congress and upon the country the need for 
more men and for a general staff. 

It was urged by those who as early as 1916 
wanted to see the navy put on a footing of higher 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 47 

efficiency that the training of officers took four 
years, and the enlistment and training of blue 
jackets a time sufficiently long to justify immediate 
action to meet a threatened emergency. Nothing 
was done at the time, and when we did go into the 
war it was found necessary to cut down the pro- 
fessional training of officers fifty per cent by grad- 
uating them from Annapolis after a two years' 
course instead of the normal course of four years. 
The argument may be made that with these young 
officers we managed to struggle through the war 
and emerge victorious, but it must be remembered 
that it was not for us a fighting war. The service 
was wearing and arduous, that is true enough. 
But it was not a service in which we lost many 
officers who had to be replaced lest the efficiency of 
the fleet should suffer. Our enemy was penned up 
in his naval bases. So far as our fleet was con- 
cerned it never came to blows with the foe in a 
single fleet, or first-class ship action. The wearing 
monotony of the blockade and the convoy with an 
occasional " scrap " with a submarine filled out the 
record of our naval service. Had we fought a naval 
war such as Germany might have forced, had her 
fleet not been tied up by England's overwhelming 
strength, we should have had sore need for more 
trained officers. 

In January, 1917, there were 4,500 officers and 
68,000 blue jackets in our navy. By the following 
December there were 15,000 officers and 254,000 
men. In April of 1918 there were 18,585 officers 



48 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

and 283,717 men, and on November 8th of that 
year, two days before the signing of the armistice, 
there were 32,474 officers and 497,939 men enrolled. 
The word " men " is not quite accurate in this con- 
nection. For as Secretary Daniels wrote, " it be- 
came necessary to enroll capable and patriotic 
women as yeomen to meet the sudden expansion 
and enlarged duties imposed by war conditions." 
As a result of this the " yeomanette," or " yeo- 
woman " as the common phrase was, or the " yeo- 
man (F) " according to the official title became a 
very prominent figure around the shore head- 
quarters of the navy. They did not, however, go to 
sea — a fact that, with the acceptance of woman 
suffrage need not necessarily prevent some 

^woman's yet being secretary of the navy. 

^ The enormous increase in the personnel of the 
navy was not accomplished without effort, but it is 
a source of pride to the navy's friends that the navy 
was manned wholly by volunteers and without re- 
course to conscription. An immediate source of 
large accessions to the regular force was the Naval 
Reserve of the various states, which had happily 
been built up to a high degree of efficiency during 
the time of peace, and most of whose members were 
immediately available for petty officers and even 
for commissions. The members of this organiza- 
tion were enrolled in the federal service under the 
name of Naval Volunteers, and at the very out- 
break of the war added forty-five thousand men to 
the service. The character of the men thus en- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 49 

rolled caused some curious incidents during the 
war, for the Naval Militia had been a form of vol- 
unteer service in peace times very popular with col- 
lege boys, and the scions of wealthy families com- 
monly referred to as " gilded youth." Once in the 
federal service they had no choice as to what par- 
ticular form of duty they should perform. There 
is a story of a stoker, with two companions, still 
bearing the grime of his calling, who sought the 
best accommodations a Paris hotel would afford. 
The doubts of the landlord were set at rest by the 
display of a thousand-franc note, and a letter of 
credit that dazzled the eyes of the boniface. One 
of the greatest oil magnates of Oklahoma — a man 
who could have furnished gratis all the oil that a 
battleship would burn in a year and not feel the 
expense — was an orderly on one of the ships. 

Regular officers of the navy, whose reward comes 
in professional attainments rather than in any 
pecuniary prosperity, were sometimes puzzled by 
this new and extraordinary variety of sailor men 
brought them by the war. The story is told that to 
the officer of the day on a ship lying in New York 
harbor came a " gob," cap in hand, asking leave to 
go ashore. 

" For what purpose? " asked the officer. 

" To look after a job that I have got, sir." 

" But you are in the navy now. You mustn't be 
giving yourself any concern about jobs. What is 
this job anyway? " 

" First vice-president of the Railroad Com- 



50 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

pany, sir. I've just been elected." The blue jacket 
was a scion of one of the best-known railroad 
families in the United States. 

Curious stories are told concerning the comiDlete 
ignorance of naval life manifested by some of the 
youngsters who were called to these training 
camps. Discipline was particularly hard for them 
to understand. Often they seemed to feel that 
there was an element of personal aversion on the 
part of superior officers who exacted the respect 
due to their rank. There is a story of a recruit who 
had been called up to the mast and received a 
proper dressing down from the commandant for 
some offense, and who met that functionary the 
next day on the parade. The recruit averted his 
eyes sheepishly and walked by. Instantly the of- 
ficer turned, called him back and said sternly, 
" Why did you fail to salute? " 

" Why, sir," said the gob, " I supposed you were 
still mad at me." 

And although it would seem to be a very easy 
matter to teach youths to respond in sailor-like 
phrase to the word of command, it proved in fact 
very difficult to get them to say " aye, aye, sir," in 
place of " all right," or " sure." The officers' mess 
at Pelham Bay chuckled a long time over the 
purple rage of an old-time navy officer to whom a 
particularly green gob responded cheerfully on re- 
ceiving an order, " Why, all right, brother ! " 

In due time these and all the other little creases 
of civilian life were duly ironed out by the work of 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 51 

discipline. The men not only learned to hold them- 
selves like sailors, but to think like sailors and to 
have only the one idea, namely, to reverence the 
flag and to do their duty by it. A writer on the 
gradual development of the Naval Reserve tells of a 
striking incident illustrative of this. He says : 

" I happened to be sitting in an office in the 
Administration Building one afternoon, talking to 
some one, and between whiles idly watching a lot 
of men on the parade ground who were practising 
baseball and batting ' f ungoes ' about, when, on 
looking up, I saw that every man had dropped bat 
or ball, and turned towards the Y.M.C.A. building 
and stood frozen to attention, with his hand raised 
in salute. For a minute I could not think what it 
meant, when I remembered that a concert had been 
going on in the building, and that at the end of 
a concert it is customary to play the national 
anthem. I pointed it out to my officer friend, he 
raised his window, and sure enough the strains of 
* The Star-Spangled Banner ' came faintly floating 
out of the open windows of the Y. building. It is 
said that men in swimming have been seen to sud- 
denly stand at attention and salute, with the water 
up to their chests, when they heard the sound of 
that tune." 

Enlisted men came from every walk of American 
life. The farms furnished perhaps the greater 
share. It is a curious fact that the desire for a sea- 
faring life should have manifested itself strongly 
among tens of thousands of boys who had never 



52 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

seen a ship, except in pictures, and whose nostrils 
had never sensed the tang of salt air. For half a 
century and more the nation had legislated in be- 
half of its fisheries on the theory that they served 
as a nursery for naval seamen. But when the 
emergency came it was to the plains of the West 
that we turned for blue jackets, not to the fleets of 
Gloucester and the Great Bank. One reason for 
this was that the fishing fleet was not itself over- 
manned, and we could not afford to strip so im- 
portant an agency for the feeding of the nation. 

Not all of the boys who came flocking from farms 
and workshops had their desire to go to sea satis- 
fied. That was one of the pathetic parts of the 
service. The period of war was so brief, the final 
armistice came so unexpectedly, that tens of thou- 
sands of youths were enlisted who never got out of 
their training camps. Of those who went to sea 
not many saw as much of foreign lands as they 
had anticipated. The exigencies of the war service 
made foreign shore leave infrequent and brief. 
There were many instances of youths who crossed 
the ocean a score of times and saw nothing more of 
the shore than a few miles about the port to which 
their ships were ordered. " Join the navy and see 
the world — through a port hole ! " was the satirical 
way in which the blue jackets amended one of the 
enticing posters urging enlistments. 

Some account of the routine of one of the great 
training camps through which perhaps fifty thou- 
sand young men passed during the brief period of 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 53 

the war will be of interest. There were two such 
camps. One known as the Great Lakes Training 
Station, on the shore of Lake Michigan, twenty 
miles north of Chicago, was designed as a perma- 
nent adjunct to the navy. It is a magnificent group 
of substantial buildings, capable of caring for 
twenty-five thousand recruits at a time and is one 
of the show places of the neighborhood. The sec- 
ond camp, at Pelham Bay Park, on Long Island 
Sound, within the city limits of Greater New York, 
was originally planned to train five thousand sea- 
men, and ultimately so developed as to accommo- 
date forty thousand. It was a small town of rough 
wooden barracks, without architectural pretension 
or beauty, but withal carefully planned with refer- 
ence to sanitation and utility. The site was beau- 
tiful, on a wooded neck of land that had been cared 
for by the city as a park, sloping gently down to 
the water, where there was a bathing beach and a 
broad expanse of placid sea for boat drills and 
exercises. To this camp came all sorts and condi- 
tions of boys — boys from New York's lower East 
Side, whose strange jumble of foreign tongues 
made one wonder just what constituted an Ameri- 
can citizen; boys from lonely prairie farms to 
whom the proximity to a great city and the con- 
stant presence of the sea were sources of daily 
delight; boys from our most aristocratic colleges, 
and boys who could with difiiculty read words of 
one syllable; boys whose allowances had exceeded 
the income of a fairly prosperous professional man, 



54 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

and boys to whom the navy pay and allowances 
seemed like a fortune. Not all were mere boys. 
There were college tutors, young professional men, 
men of business affairs who had set aside their own 
interests to serve the nation. Once entered by the 
great gate of the training camp all were for the 
moment reduced to perfect equality — stripped, 
bathed, examined by a surgeon, vaccinated against 
smallpox, inoculated for typhoid, charted on a 
card that noted all physical characteristics and dis- 
played the finger-prints of the recruit as the police 
records bear those of convicted criminals. 

The man who shipped in the navy was left no 
shred of individual dignity to set him above his 
fellows. The petted society man and the cowboy 
of the West went through the same mill. Each had 
issued to him the same outfit of clothing with a sea- 
bag in which to store it. Each shouldered his bag 
and marched off to his quarters to begin learning 
to be a blue jacket — or as the naval phrase, less 
polite, had it, " a gob." 

The camp was treated as though it was a ship. 
To leave its bounds was to " go ashore." To report 
to the commander for reproof was to be " up at the 
mast." Getting out of bed at 5.30 sharp was " hit- 
ting the deck." The recruit was taught to substi- 
tute " aye, aye, sir," for the landsman's " all right," 
and to salute every officer on sight. That indefin- 
able something called " discipline," to which every 
man on a man-of-war from captain to stoker must 
submit, was drilled into him hour by hour and day 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 55 

by day. A singular thing that discipline. Offen- 
sive to the civilian mind it alone makes life bear- 
able where great masses of men are intimately asso- 
ciated in the pursuit of some common end. Rightly 
understood it bears no more harshly upon the 
"gob" than upon the admiral. When it has be- 
come, as in the navy, a true second nature, it not 
only averts friction in normal times, but in a 
moment of peril or catastrophe is the greatest safe- 
guard of the ship's company. Disciplined men in a 
moment of extreme danger, perform automatically, 
subconsciously, those necessary acts that the undis- 
ciplined mind would forget in its wild panic. 

Illustrations of this are innumerable in naval 
annals. The case of Sergeant Anthony, in the 
midst of the horror of the sinking of the Maine, 
with magazines exploding and men being blown to 
bits on every side, coming quietly to the door of 
Captain Sigsbee's cabin with the formal salute and 
the report, " Sir, the ship has been blown up and 
is sinking," is but one case in point. In the same 
disaster Lieutenant Jenkins, caught between decks 
of the ship that was shaking with repeated explo- 
sions, sprang not to a place of safety but to the 
gun which he was to command in action. So 
swiftly did he seek his place of duty that he was 
caught in the second explosion and killed. 

This is the end and aim of all military and naval 
discipline — to so substitute a trained and formal 
course of action for the normal instinct of the 
human mind that in an emergency the man will 



56 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

do what he has been taught to do, do it at once, 
instinctively and without responding to the normal 
dictates of his mind at such a moment. It is urged 
against discipline of this kind that it substitutes 
a machine for a reasoning human being. But this 
is true only in so far as it compels purely mechani- 
cal action, according to a carefully matured plan, 
at a moment when reliance upon hasty individual 
judgment would be fatal. 

And while being thus steadily subjected to dis- 
cipline the young recruit is also being taught the 
rudiments of his duty as a seaman. There is plenty 
for him to learn. He has squad drill and the 
manual of arms. He must learn to take care of his 
clothing with a degree of preciseness that seems to 
him mere foolish " fussiness." But in the strait- 
ened space on ship if everything is not in its exact 
place all will be in desperate disorder. When 1,200 
men are cooped up in such narrow compass, the 
utmost respect for system must be observed if con- 
ditions are to be kept at all tolerable, or indeed 
safe. This is why in their apprentice days the boys 
are taught to place their shoes just so on turning 
in, and to fold all garments in a fashion that seems 
to be dictated only by the whim of some officer with 
a talent for making trouble. Moreover, the young- 
ster learns to do a lot for himself that he had 
hitherto left to the loving care of mother, or the 
more mercenary service of the tailor or laundress. 
He learns to mend his clothes and to wash them — 
the latter no small job in the summer season when 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 57 

" whites " or white cotton uniforms are the order 
of the day. 

" Marlinspike seamanship," or the art of making 
knots, splices, bends and hitches, engages his 
fingers for awhile. There are not many ropes on a 
modern man-of-war. Bolts and nuts take their 
place and a monkey wrench comes into use more 
often than a marlinspike. But the old arts of sea- 
manship are not yet wholly abandoned. In the 
camp the recruit finds ship's bridges — with no ships 
under them — from which he learns to wigwag, 
work the semaphore and heave the lead. On 
wharves, quite destitute of neighboring water, he 
makes hawsers fast to cleats and bits, and brings 
imaginary boats to a firm mooring. He pulls a 
" dry oar " in boats far from the water in order 
to learn the man-of-war stroke. He must learn to 
" box the compass," to give the bearings of an 
imaginary vessel sighted perhaps " two points off 
the starboard quarter," and, with the aid of the 
" Blue Jackets' Manual," to understand a few hun- 
dred sea terms only a little more understandable 
than Greek to the average landsman. 

The bodies of the would-be sailors were subjected 
to a training and discipline only a little less 
arduous than that of their minds. In fact it would 
have been considered a great deal more trying ex- 
cept for the fact that the element of sport was 
introduced wherever it was possible. Athletic in- 
structors and coaches were called from a score of 
colleges, and at every reception and training camp 



58 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

the boys were given the opportunity to share in 
athletic sports that under ordinary circumstances 
only college boys can enjoy. Their " teams," 
" elevens " and " nines " had the advantages of 
numbering among their players college stars of ex- 
perience and fame on the track, the gridiron or the 
diamond. In fact, so largely did the football stars 
of the colleges go into the navy service that the 
sport was largely abandoned among American col- 
leges in the fall of 1917 and 1918. 

In organizing the physical training work the 
curious fact was discovered that of the thousands 
of young men gathered for naval service not one- 
half could swim. Accordingly much attention was 
given to teaching this art so essential to the safety 
of men whose lives are to be spent at sea. Boxing 
was taught for two reasons — first, its obvious value 
as a means of self-defense, and, second, because of 
the fact that it was closely related to bayonet exer- 
cise. The maxim was laid down that " every move 
of the boxer is a corresponding move by the bayo- 
net." The " counter " with the fist is equivalent to 
the " parry " with the bayonet, and the " jab " is 
equal to the " lunge." Boxing was always a popu- 
lar sport in the navy, as the broad decks of the 
battleships offered unusual facilities for pitching 
" the squared circle " and with the official recogni- 
tion now given to it the rivalry of the champions of 
the various camps, fleets and ships became intense. 

Besides the great schools for the training of sea- 
men there were lesser naval schools for higher and 






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BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 59 

more technical education, such as the Engineers' 
School at Hoboken, N. J., a radio school at 
Harvard, Officers' Material Schools at New York 
and Boston, with naval flying schools at Pensacola, 
Hampton Roads, Bay Shore, N. Y., Mt Clemens, 
Mich., and San Diego, California. 

When the United States had been at war four 
months the arrangements for the training of sea- 
men, and the education of officers, were such as to 
meet every possible need of an enormous navy. 
That the sudden end of the war made all this 
organization useless is no reflection upon the policy 
which created it. In every branch of war activities, 
manufacturing, transportation, military or naval, 
our government wisely prepared for a long struggle. 
That the Huns should collapse after our armies had 
been in active service for a scant six months could 
not possibly have been foreseen. 

To those who made a study of these admirable 
training camps, both military and naval, there 
came a general feeling of regret that they could not 
be maintained permanently for the education of the 
youth of the country. It is a curious and a lament- 
able fact that a nation is always able to find mil- 
lions — in the late war all nations found billions — 
to prosecute a war, and not always a just war or a 
V7ar for defense at that, while in peace it begrudges 
a few hundred thousands to the cause of education, 
or of social service. No Congress has ever been 
willing to make the necessary appropriations for 
the military or naval training, for even a few 



60 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

months, of all our youth in time of peace. That 
such training, if accompanied as it well might be 
by schooling in the essentials of a trade, would be 
of incalculable value to the body of the people, and 
therefore to the nation, is seldom questioned. But 
the cost has always been a bar to congressional 
action. When war comes cost is never reckoned. 
But after the war it is not unprofitable to reckon 
on what might have been done with the enormous 
sums spent in waste, had they been used to improve 
the living conditions of the people, to cheapen 
transportation, and hence food and clothing, to 
educate the youth and to care for those in old age. 
Such speculations as these have attended the close 
of every war but the world has learned no wisdom. 



i 



CHAPTER III 

Tasks before the United States navy. — Building a merchant fleet. 
— The interned German ships. — Vandalism quickly corrected. 
— The ocean ferry. — Strength of German naval bases. — Hovf 
to beat the U-boat. — The destroyers. — First squadron for 
Europe. — Strength and weakness of the submarine. — ^The 
convoy. — Keeping tab on submarines. — Anti-submarine stra- 
tegy. — Our naval base at Queenstown. — Trouble with Sinn 
Fein. 

Two definite tasks were presented to the American 
navy at the beginning of the war. They were of 
equal importance. No one could say that either 
might be neglected in favor of the other. For one 
was to carry our army across three thousand miles 
of ocean that it miglit aid in giving the final death 
stroke to the Hun. The other was to so police the 
seas that England might be fed, and all the mag- 
nificent fighting of the Allied armies not be brought 
to naught by the starvation of the English people 
into subjection. 

Both tasks were successfully accomplished. But 
neither was completed without great aid from the 
British navy and the British government. Our 
army was successfully carried to France, and any 
reasonable observer of the war will admit that it 
certainly hastened the Allied victory, even if it be 
asserted that that victory w^ould have come even- 
tually had tlie United States not entered upon the 

61 



62 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

war. But sixty per cent of our men were carried 
across the ocean in British ships. This fact de- 
tracts neither from the patriotic impulse that sent 
them across, nor from the skill with which Ameri- 
cans directed and guarded the voyages of the con- 
voys. We simply did not have the needful ships 
afloat under our flag. If there be critics, either 
among our own people or foreigners, who wish to 
pick flaws in our service they may justly direct 
their criticisms against the policy of government 
that had permitted our merchant marine so to 
dwindle that we had not the ships wherewith to 
transport our own army in an emergency. 

But with that emergency at hand the people of 
the United States, as usual, put forth their utmost 
energy to meet it. Every available ship flying the 
United States flag was pressed into the service. 
The coastwise lines were stripped. From the Great 
Lakes vessels were brought to the Atlantic by every 
conceivable route, and by the application of every 
imaginable device for getting them past the ob- 
stacles in the path. Cutting ships in two on Lake 
Erie, and welding together the severed parts after 
they had passed the locks of the Welland and the 
St. Lawrence canals was a commonplace expedient. 
One vessel was floated through the canals on her 
side, as her depth was less than her beam. Ship- 
yards were established all over the United States 
for the hasty construction of vessels to carry fight- 
ing men to France, and food to England. The 
building of wooden ships, almost a lost art, was 



I 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 63 

revived, though it must be said without a degree 
of success that will lead to its continuance. But 
ports that never expected to see a ship rising on the 
ways became the site of busy shipyards because of 
their proximity to supplies of ship timber in the 
forests. The shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the 
coasts of Oregon and Washington resounded to the 
noise of the shipwright's adze and the calker's ham- 
mer, and fleets of uncompleted ships were there 
still on their ways when the armistice abruptly 
ended their construction. 

A great nucleus was furnished for the new fleet 
by the presence in American ports of 109 German 
vessels that had been interned at the beginning of 
the war to save them from the British navy, and 
that now fell into our hands. These ships aggre- 
gated more than 500,000 tons and ranged in size 
from the magnificent Vaterland, the greatest ship 
in the world, of more than 50,000 tons displace- 
ment, down to 4,500-ton cargo carriers, not spec- 
tacular vessels but the type in which the bulk of 
the world's commerce is carried on. A great num- 
ber, however, were passenger liners of the best type. 
For many years before the war the German govern- 
ment, and the Kaiser personally, had exerted every 
effort to get away from England a large share of 
the ocean-carrying trade which that nation had so 
long almost monopolized. So far as high-class pas- 
senger trade was concerned the German effort had 
been very successful. The Hamburg- American line 
had become the greatest fleet of ocean-going ships 



64 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

in the world, and palatial vessels flying the red, 
black and white were favorite passenger carriers 
between the United States and Europe, and on 
pleasure trips around the world which Germans 
organized and conducted with extraordinary skill. 
Scarcely any feature in the commercial develop- 
ment of the day was more remarkable than the 
rapidly progressing German conquest of the seas 
when the criminal and suicidal conspiracy of the 
Teutonic nations to force a war upon a peaceful 
world brought the whole edifice down in complete 
smash. Apologists for Germany insist, that it was 
this maritime development that so aroused British 
jealousy as to make the forcing of the war a neces- 
sary act of national self-preservation for Germany, 
but if that were so, which is more than doubtful, 
the remedy was tenfold worse than the danger. 
For the war was not ten days old before all peace- 
ful German commerce was swept from the seas by 
the British navy. A few raiders, and Admiral von 
Spee's squadron, were free for a few weeks until 
overtaken and destroyed by British men-of-war, 
while the German merchant ships were either cap- 
tured forthwith, or driven into internment in neu- 
tral harbors for the period of the war. 

Those that sought refuge in our harbors were 
kept under American guard until such time as our 
own entrance upon the conflict made them our own 
spoil of war. The greatest fleet of all — though 
there were a few ships interned in every consider- 
able American harbor — was laid up at Hoboken, 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 65 

directly across the North River from New York 
City. Here were the biggest and best of the Ger- 
man liners, beginning with the huge Vatcrland, 
and including the most popular ships of the ocean 
ferry. Their crews were interned with them, and 
for the early period of the war Hoboken had much 
the air of a German seaport. While under a cer- 
tain espionage, and subject to regulations as to 
their actions, the ofiflcers and men, living on the 
ships were to all intents and purposes free, and 
probably congratulated themselves on their escape 
from the hardships and carnage of the war at home. 
But now and then the spirit of patriotism moved 
some of them to try to make their way back to 
Germany to join their countrymen in battle. It 
was no easy job, for the British were searching the 
merchant ships of all nations for just such enemies, 
and but few were able to reach their destination. 

When the United States declared war the liberty 
enjoyed by the interned Germans was at once 
stopped. It was perilous to have such considerable 
bodies of enemy aliens congregated at or near our 
seaports where they might convey information to 
the enemy of the movements of our ships, or com- 
mit actual depredations upon our shipping. Ac- 
cordingly internment camps, and war prison bar- 
racks, were prepared for this class of prisoners. 
The largest of these camps was at Hot Springs, N. 
C, where an old hotel, reminiscent of the by-gone 
days when the place was a famous resort for south- 
ern people, furnished the nucleus of living quarters 



66 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

for a thousand or so of German ofl&cers and men. 
The hotel itself was the least commodious of the 
quarters. Given a good deal of freedom, and ma- 
terials with which to build homes to suit them- 
selves, the men built by the side of the rushing 
river, which there flows through lush meadows bor- 
dered on either side by precipitous mountains, a 
most picturesque little village. Kustic houses built 
of limbs of trees, roots, rocks and odds and ends of 
material picked up about the camp gave oppor- 
tunity for picturesque planning. Even a small 
church was built. The prisoners were practically 
a self-governing community, having only one roll- 
call a day, and the rest of the time following a pro- 
gramme determined by their own officers, or by 
committees which they selected. In comparison 
with their fellows in the trenches before Verdun 
they were in an earthly paradise. 

But even before the declaration of war by the 
United States, and while the German sailors were 
still living on their ships in leisurely ease and com- 
fort, they were plotting against the welfare of this 
government. As it became increasingly evident 
that the United States would be forced into war, 
suspicion grew that the Germans on the great fleet 
of interned vessels would commit some acts of vio- 
lence to prevent their falling into the hands of the 
United States in a condition fit for service. But, 
however strong that suspicion, there was no way to 
verify it, or to avert the action apprehended, short 
of war — and for that the administration at Wash- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 67 

ington was not ready. The German ships were 
German territory. The United States had no more 
authority to take possession of them, or even to in- 
spect them by force than it had to take the same 
action in the German embassy at Washington. It 
was, in fact, entirely within the right of the officers 
on the German ships, if they so chose, to get np 
steam and put out to sea any day before our dec- 
laration of war. That they did not do so was due 
to their knowledge of the fact that outside the 
harbor lurked two or three British men-of-war 
awaiting just such a move, and ready to capture 
the fugitive or blow it out of water. 

However, if flight was denied the Germans, the 
opportunity for doing sinister damage to the ships 
from within was open to them. Doing this was 
quite as much an act of war as the forcible entry 
upon the vessels by the United States for the pur- 
pose of averting just such action would have been. 
But this nation lived up to its duties and responsi- 
bilities as a neutral. The Germans flatly violated 
theirs — and did it upon direct orders from the 
legation embassy at Washington where the Ambas- 
sador was daily making protestations of friendship 
to the United States. 

Practically every German ship was more or less 
seriously damaged by the secret work of their 
crews. One, the Liebenfels, was sunk in Charles- 
ton harbor by opening her seacocks, her crew tak- 
ing to the boats for safety. Engine cylinders were 
fractured by blows with sledge-hammers. Piston- 



68 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

rods were cut. Engine-room telegraph systems 
were smashed. Delicate parts of the machinery- 
were broken, but so patched up that the damage 
would not show, in the hope that when the Ameri- 
cans took command and got up steam in the boilers, 
disastrous, and even fatal, explosions might follow. 
The most ingenious devices to accomplish this end 
were employed, and after the Americans had de- 
tected one or two it became apparent that the whole 
machinery of each of the interned ships would have 
to be gone over with a magnifying glass before it 
would be safe to send any to sea. It was a dis- 
couraging outlook. The ships were seized in April, 
immediately upon the declaration of war, with the 
expectation that they could at once be put into the 
service of carrying troops for which they were so 
greatly needed. But the first survey made of their 
condition resulted in a report that no ship could 
be used for at least eight months, while some would 
need two years for repairing. But our navy of- 
ficials brought to bear upon the problem all the 
mechanical ingenuity of which Americans were 
capable. Railroad shops and the greatest mechani- 
cal institutions of the land were stripped of their 
experts, and the job of restoring the ships was 
begun while the Germans responsible for their con- 
dition were enjoying themselves at Hot Springs. 

The ships had, of course, been built in German 
shipyards, and it was at once apparent that to re- 
place the broken parts was quite out of the ques- 
tion. Should entirely new machinery then be in- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 69 

stalled? That too upon consideration seemed im- 
practicable, as it would have involved new designs, 
the delay of construction and then the laborious 
work of installation. In the end the Navy Bureau 
of Steam Engineering, to which the problem had 
been referred, determined to patch up the machin- 
ery as it stood. This raised many novel mechanical 
questions. To put a patch in the side of a huge 
steam cylinder every inch of which would be sub- 
ject to enormous steam pressure, or to weld the 
broken parts of a great piston on which rested the 
burden of driving the Vatcrland through the roll- 
ing waves were mechanical expedients hitherto un- 
tried. Under the direction of navy engineers, how- 
ever, they were employed for the repair of the en- 
gines of the larger German ships, and with such 
success that while the fleet had been taken over in 
'April, 1917, all damages had been repaired by 
December of that year and five hundred thousand 
tons of shipping was added to our wartime fleet. 
Most of the German ships were put in use as trans- 
ports and the time required for flxing their machin- 
ery was but little more than w^as requisite for fit- 
ting their hulls for this type of service. 

Less vital perhaps, but at the same time im- 
portant to the American mind, was the correction 
of the names of the captured vessels. The huge 
yatcrland, greatest of all ships afloat, became the 
Leviathan, and now floats the American flag. The 
'Amerika dropped her Teutonic " k " for a " c ", the 
^Kronprin^ Wilhelm became the von Steuben in 



70 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

honor of the German who, in revolutionary days, 
threw in his lot with Washington and the Conti- 
nental army, the Prinz Eitel Friederich, a com- 
merce destroyer became the De Kalb, commemo- 
rating the name of another German who aided our 
revolutionary efforts. The last two changes sug- 
gest a purpose on the part of the Navy Department 
to emphasize the President's statement that our 
quarrel was not with the German people, but with 
the militarists who constituted for the time the 
German government, and who in the end brought 
that thriving and progressive nation down to ruin 
and despair. 

Under their new names these German ships did 
magnificent service in transporting to Europe the 
army of American soldiers that put the final stroke 
to the defeat of Germany. 

The accomplishment of this end offered entirely 
new military and naval problems. Never before, 
under conditions of modern warfare, had an army 
been transported across three thousand miles of 
sea, and landed in a foreign country to operate 
against an alert and powerful enemy. The nearest 
approach to such a task had been that accomplished 
successfully by the British in their war with the 
Boers of South Africa. But they had a compara- 
tively weak adversary to encounter, and the land- 
ing-place for their expedition was on the soil of 
their own colony. The United States confronted a 
foe who had fought all western Europe practically 
to a standstill, and had to establish its own naval 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 71 

bases and bases of supply on the soil of a foreign 
nation. It had, moreover, to transport its troops 
over three thousand miles of ocean in which 
lurked enemy vessels of a type with which the 
navies of the world had not yet learned how 
to cope. 

The German submarines had brought the British 
Isles to the verge of starvation merely by patrolling 
the ocean lanes leading to English ports and sink- 
ing as many as possible of the ships bound to that 
country. With the greatest navy the world had 
ever known, a navy the efSciency of which was as 
notable as its mere size, the British had been 
utterly unable to meet this grave menace. The 
interviev/ of Admiral Sims with Admiral Jellicoe, 
quoted in a preceding chapter, shows how despair- 
ing was the British outlook upon the situation 
which German submarine activity had created. If 
it was becoming more and more difficult for a ship 
laden with food to reach a British port, how much 
more precarious would be the fortunes of trans- 
ports laden with soldiers, and bound for either 
British or French havens? The same narrow lanes 
would have to be traversed. The same "neck of 
the bottle," as the entrance to the English Channel 
was called, would have to be passed. The food 
ships came from every port in the world, their sail- 
ing unnoticed and their courses uncharted. But 
our transports would set out from one or two well- 
known American harbors. The multiplicity of 
German spies might be expected to send prompt 



72 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

word of their sailing. Their courses lay along well- 
known ocean lanes, and the j)oints which they must 
pass to reach either French or British ports were 
easily foretold. It was with grave apprehensions 
that our government approached a task which 
threatened so heavy a loss of human life. 

And yet those apprehensions were far from 
realized. We lost the lives of gallant soldiers in 
the ocean ferry. That was true enough. But the 
losses were far less than the most sanguine would 
have foretold in view of the multitudinous dangers 
lurking in the path. Before the armistice was 
signed we had landed in France or England more 
than two million men. Not one life was lost on an 
American transport, and in proportion to the num- 
ber carried the number of lives lost on other ships 
was small. 

But before that work could be begun the Atlantic 
lanes must be swept clear of submarines, or at least 
the activities of German vessels of that type must 
be so checked that we might be able to land our 
army in Europe without crippling losses. This the 
Germans did not believe we should ever be able to 
do, and when the success we had attained in this 
effort finally dawned upon them it was the revela- 
tion that finally shattered the morale of their army, 
broke the spirit of their people and made their sur- 
render inevitable. 

It followed, therefore, that, so far as the navy of 
the United States was concerned, the World War 
resolved itself into a long-continued fight upon the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 73 

submarine. To our British cousins and our French 
allies service afloat offered more variety. To the 
British navy fell at the outset the task of hunting 
down and destroying the German raiders, includ- 
ing the powerful squadron of Admiral von Spee, 
which was not destroyed until after it had inflicted 
a decisive defeat upon the inferior British fleet 
which first encountered it. The British had im- 
posed upon them not only the task of keeping the 
German high seas fleet immured at its base, but had 
occasionally to fight pitched battles to keep that 
blockade effective. British ships co-operated with 
the Allied army in Flanders, and conducted a per- 
sistent bombardment of the enemy's works along 
the shores of the Channel and the North Sea- 
British blue jackets conducted the famous raid 
upon the mole and submarine base at Zeebrugge. 
The ill-fated expedition to the Dardanelles called 
into action a very large part of the British fleet, 
and, though unsuccessful, at least afforded to the 
British blue jackets some relief from the deadly 
monotony of the blockade and the submarine 
search. The battle of Jutland, the only great sea 
fight between fleets of modern ships of war, was a 
duel between the British and German navies alone, 
with the rest of the Allies left out. 

Accordingly, the service demanded of our navy 
was monotonous and far from spectacular. But it 
was not for that reason the less important or dan- 
gerous. Of its importance the revelations made by 
Admiral Jellicoe to Admiral Sims afford the best 



74 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

proof. Of the clanger involved, and of the daring 
and devotion with which our men met those dan- 
gers this book has yet to tell. 

The story of the work of our navy in 1918 and 
the year following differs largely from the story 
which the present author has told of it in our 
earlier wars, in that the work of the big ships — the 
dreadnoughts and the battle cruisers — figured but 
little. There were no single ship duels, like that of 
the Constitution and the Guerriere in our War of 
1812, nor any fleet actions like that off the harbor 
of Santiago in 1898. Our big ships were on guard, 
it is true enough, breasting the waves and steaming 
through the cold gray fogs of the North Sea. But 
they were on the alert against an enemy that never 
came out for battle. Suspense, discomfort and 
ennui were the foes against which their people had 
most to struggle. 

When the United States was fairly launched 
upon the war there were many who thought that 
one of the first fruits of our assistance would be 
to spur the British navy into some sort of an attack 
upon those fortified bases whence the submarines 
had for years been sallying forth to prey upon the 
shipping of the world. We quoted Farragut with 
his, " Damn the torpedoes ! Go ahead ! " We re- 
called Dewey steaming into Manila harbor at dead 
of night indifferent to any possible mines. It 
seemed to us incredible that the greatest naval 
power in the world should have been stood off for 
three years by the defenses of the retreats of the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 75 

enemy's underwater boats and have been brought 
to the very point of national defeat by its inability 
to check those submarine pests. 

But once in we found that the same considera- 
tions that had restrained the British influenced us. 
The defenses behind which the German High Seas 
Fleet rested in safety, and the bases to which the 
submarines retired after more or less successful 
forays along the lanes of commerce were so de- 
fended by nature and by art that attack upon them 
would have been suicidal. Out at sea, thirty-five 
miles or more from the German coast lay the island 
of Heligoland which the Germans had converted 
into an enormous and impregnable fortress — the 
Gibraltar of the North Sea. Its great guns, dis- 
appearing behind unshakable earthworks after 
every shot, commanded the sea for a space of 
twenty miles at least. A ship engaged in a duel 
with them was outclassed from the first. Its 
armor, steel though it were and two feet thick, 
opposed no such resistance to projectiles as did 
those massive walls of dirt. The naval cannon, 
prodigious though they were and terrible as were 
their shells, were fired from a base ever tossing and 
rolling on an unquiet sea, while the guns of the fort 
were mounted on a firm foundation. We, of the 
United States have ever felt that Farragut at 
Mobile and below New Orleans, and Dewey at 
Manila had proved that ships could always run 
past forts though they might not be able to reduce 
them. But modern naval tactics tend to discard 



76 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

this theory, especially when the forts are re- 
inforced by submarines and naval vessels operat- 
ing under cover of their guns, and fields of mines 
skilfully laid. 

Heligoland was but the advance post, the first 
line of the German defense. Back of it were mine- 
fields that guarded every approach to the coast. 
The harbors of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, the chief 
naval bases of the enemy were defended by every 
device known to modern warfare. In them the 
great German fleet that had been built up at huge 
expense, and that had so aroused the pride of every 
German from Kaiser to kellner, rested supine, in 
ignoble inactivity throughout the war. Its only 
two considerable forays were promptly met by the 
British, and its vessels fled " helter-skelter through 
the blue" till they got safely back to port. In 
British naval annals there is some discussion as 
to whether in the greater battle in which the two 
fleets came into contact, the battle of Jutland, more 
dash and pertinacity on the part of Admiral Jelli- 
coe might not have resulted in the capture or de- 
struction of the greater part of the enemy fleet. 
Concerning this British controversy is active, but 
it needs no attention in a story of the American 
navy. 

Accepting then as inevitable and unchangeable 
the fact that the Germans could continue to build 
submarines and to dispatch them on their errand 
of destruction from ports too strongly protected to 
admit of successful naval attack the question pre- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 77 

sented was how to grapple with them successfully 
after they had reached the open sea. 

If England was to be fed the sinking of food 
ships must be stopped or at least reduced to such 
proportions that more ships could be built, and 
food cargoes landed, than the Germans were able 
to destroy. And if Germany was to be finally 
beaten on land it would be necessary to make ocean 
passage at least reasonably safe for our laden 
troop-ships. 

A fortnight before our declaration of war Ad- 
miral Sims, and a naval aide, had been secretly 
dispatched to London to prepare for co-operation 
with the British navy in the war which, it was 
apparent then to every one, was inevitable. What 
Admiral Jellicoe told the American officer has 
already been quoted. The best authorities in Great 
Britain estimated that unless the Germans could 
be checked the limit of England's endurance would 
be reached November 1st — and it was then April. 

The British admiralty had exhausted, it ap- 
peared, human ingenuity in the search for a defense 
against the underwater foe. Inventors on that side 
of the water, as on this, had racked their brains 
in vain. It is reported that in England not less 
than forty thousand inventions for the balking of 
the submarine were investigated and discarded. 
Nearly as many were offered on this side of the 
ocean. Most of them were ridiculous ; some seemed 
promising. But the chief trouble with all was that 
they required months for their perfection, and time 



78 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

was exactly the thing that was not available. To 
those who actually knew the situation there was 
something ludicrous, if it had not been pathetic, in 
the newspaper stories of a great American inventor 
who was said to have retired to a lonely mountain 
top to give weeks of uninterrupted thought to the 
invention of a device to meet the need. Nothing 
ever came of his cogitations but had they been 
fruitful there would have been no time for building 
anything new. The U-boat had to be beaten with 
weapons already forged. 

What was to be the weapon? It was apparent to 
Admiral Sims and other naval experts of trained 
judgment that the submarine " nests " could not be 
destroyed, nor could the birds of prey be penned in 
them by any naval force that was attainable. 
Mines had been tried and failed. The enemy swept 
them up long enough for the U-boat to slip out 
and in at will. The only vessel afloat which seemed 
at all able to cope with these mysterious craft was 
the destroyer, and of these the British navy, though 
incomparably first in numbers, had not enough for 
the emergency. 

The destroyer is a type of naval vessel which had 
its origin at the time of the Russo-Japanese war. 
In that conflict one or two successes with torpedo 
boats started the cry that great battleships were 
going to be done away with altogether by these 
swift and sinister serpents of the sea. But to meet 
the menace of the torpedo boat the naval architects 
devised the torpedo-boat destroyer. Their Inge- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 79 

nuity somewhat recalls the rather flippant allegory 
of the student in Victor Hugo's romance, Lcs 
Miscrables. — "The Bon Dieu made a mouse. 
* Hullo/ he said, * I've made a mistake/ So he 
made a cat to correct it." 

The destroyers at once proved their efficiency as 
antagonists to the torpedo boats, so much so that 
a few years after their appearance the latter had 
wholly disappeared. Having driven the torpedo 
boats from the seas, the destroyers themselves 
began to exercise most of their functions. They 
were fitted with torpedo tubes, and because of their 
greater size could carry a larger armament of this 
nature than had the little vessels they had dis- 
placed. They are, in fact not small craft, but ships 
of considerable length, though of light draft and 
small beam. They are usually capable of a speed 
of about thirty-two knots an hour, although some 
have been designed to exceed this limit. In length 
they are about three hundred feet on the average, 
with a beam of thirty feet. Besides their torpedo 
tubes they carried five four-inch guns, firing shells 
■weighing sixty pounds. The average destroyer was 
of about one thousand tons and carried a crew of 
ninety-five. 

Of these ships the British had in commission in 
April, 1917, about two hundred. But not all of 
these were free for service against the submarines. 
For it is an essential point of naval tactics that 
battleships must always be guarded by destroyers 
when there is danger of an attack by submarine. 



80 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

The German High Seas Fleet, though little inclined 
to fight, had made one or two cruises, was in superb 
fighting condition and could not be ignored as a 
fighting enemy. Accordingly at least one hundred 
destroyers must be kept permanently with the 
British Grand Fleet whether it was at anchor at 
Scapa Flow, or cruising in the North Sea. The 
Germans w^ere known to have a protecting screen 
of two hundred destroyers for their fleet, and while 
the release of the British destroyers for campaigns 
against the submarines was often discussed it was 
always abandoned on grounds of prudence. 

It was clearly to the German interest to em- 
ploy every possible expedient for keeping the de- 
stroyers away from the lanes of commerce in which 
their submarines were operating. To accomplish 
this end they adopted the seemingly wanton and 
brutal policy of attacking hospital ships. To the 
average mind there could be no reason why a foe 
should sink a ship bearing only the sick and 
wounded, unarmed and flying the flag of the Red 
Cross. But the Germans did this persistently, 
arousing thereby a cry of wrath from every civi- 
lized people. It seemed to be done for mere fright- 
fulness, for the lust of slaughter. But there was 
in fact a very definite military purpose in the seem- 
ingly wanton act. The Germans knew that no 
nation would allow its wounded to be thus assassi- 
nated for want of a guard, and every destroyer 
assigned to the work of protecting the hospital 
ships made it that much safer for the submarines 




a 



5 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 81 

that were sinking the food ships voyaging toward 
English ports. Just as soon as the Allies began 
protecting their hospital ships with destroyers the 
German attacks upon them ceased. 

In his discussion of the naval operations of the 
war, Admiral Sims, recognizing the advantage that 
would accrue to the Germans if they could keep the 
United States destroyers tied up on guard duty, 
was apprehensive that they might send a few sub- 
marines to our coasts in order to awaken the fears 
of our people. They had the submarines necessary 
for this purpose. There was already a demand on 
the part of certain elements in our society — usually 
covert sympathizers with Germany — that all our 
navy should be held to guard our own coasts, and 
such an attack, with the bombardment of a few of 
our coast towns, would have made that demand 
irresistible. Happily, the expedient was never seri- 
ously tried by the enemy. Admiral Sims thinks 
this was because of " a desire to play gently with 
the United States, and in that way to delay our 
military preparations and win the war without 
coming into bloody contact with the American 
people." 

In view of the inadequacy of the British sub- 
marine fleet to meet the needs of the great emer- 
gency that confronted the Allies, the Admiral's 
first act was to cable a full statement of the gravity 
of the situation to Washington. This was supple- 
mented by messages of like tenor from Ambassador 
Page and from Mr. Balfour, the British Foreign 



82 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

Secretary. All these messages urged the United 
States to send without delay all its destroyers and 
other light craft to Queenstown and put them into 
immediate co-operation with the British fleet. 

The appeal met with a prompt response. At the 
time of the declaration of war the Eighth Destroyer 
Division was stationed in the York River, Virginia. 
It comprised the following vessels: Wadsworth, 
flagship, Commander Joseph K. Taussig; Conyng- 
ham, Commander Alfred W. Johnson ; Porter, Lieu- 
tenant-Commander Ward K. Wortman ; McDougal, 
Lieutenant-Commander Arthur P. Fairfield; 
Davis, Lieutenant-Commander Rufus F. Zogbaum, 
and Wainwright, Lieutenant-Commander Fred H. 
Poteet. 

At seven o'clock in the evening of April 6, 
1917, the day that Congress declared war, lights 
twinkling from the foremast of the Pennsylvania, 
flagship of the Atlantic fleet, conveyed to Com- 
mander Taussig this order : " Mobilize for war in 
accordance with the Department's confidential 
mobilization plan of March 21st." This meant 
first, immediate procedure to a specified navy yard 
for refitting and by daybreak the little flotilla was 
on its way. The ships were docked, hulls scraped 
and painted, stores and provisions for three months 
taken on, and finally sailed under sealed orders 
which were to be opened when the squadron was 
fifty miles east of Cape Cod. That point gained 
Commander Taussig broke open the official en- 
velope with natural eagerness. It directed him to 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 83 

take his ships to Queenstown and there to " report 
to senior British naval officer present, and there- 
after co-operate fully with the British navy." He 
was informed that his "mission is (was) to assist 
naval operations of Entente Powers in every way 
possible." It was the first order for armed action 
in the war with Germany. 

Never before had a fleet of such small vessels 
been ordered to make so long a continuous voyage 
without opportunity for taking on fresh supplies 
of fuel or without the escort of a " mother ship." 
But the voyage was made seemingly without inci- 
dent, for Commander Taussig in his report deals 
chiefly with his arrival. He wrote : 

" We were ten days in making the trip, due mostly to a 
southeast gale, which accompanied iis for seven of the ten 
days. So rough was the sea during this time that for seven 
of the ten days we did not set our mess tables; we ate off 
our laps. On the ninth day we were pleased to be met by 
a little British destroyer named the Mary Rose. She picked 
us up early one morning and came along flying the inter- 
national signal, ' Welcome to the American Colors.' To 
this we replied, ' Thank you, we are glad of your company.' 
The Mary Rose then accompanied us to Queenstown. I am 
sorry to say that three months later the Mary Rose was sunk 
with all hands by a German raider in the North Sea. We 
received a very hearty welcome at Queenstown by the British 
Admiral, Sir Lewis Bayly, and by the others in authority 
there. They were very glad to see us. 

" Things were looking black. In the three previous weeks 
the submarines had sunk 152 British merchant ships. It 



84 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

was manifest that this thing could not go on if the Allies 
were to win the war. The British Admiral gave us some 
wholesome advice in regard to how best to fight the sub- 
marines. We immediately prepared for this service by hav- 
ing what are known as depth charges or depth bombs in- 
stalled. We put ashore all of our surplus stores and pro- 
visions in order to lighten our draft, as it was possible that 
a few inches might save us from striking a mine. 

"The seriousness of the work before us was made evi- 
dent, not only by the large number of vessels that were 
being sunk, but by the fact that the night before we entered 
the harbor a German submarine had planted twelve mines 
right in the channel. Fortunately for us, they were swept 
up by the ever-vigilant British mine sweepers before we 
arrived. The day following our arrival one of the British 
gunboats from our station was torpedoed and her captain 
and forty of her crew were lost. Patrol vessels were con- 
tinually bringing in the survivors from the various ships as 
they were sunk." 

Two conversations that were held between Brit- 
ish and American officers about the time of the 
arrival of the flotilla bid fair to become historic. 
One was opened by Admiral Bayly at his first inter- 
view with his new allies. 

" When will you be ready to go to sea? "he asked 
bluntly. 

The question is one that is apt to be embarrass- 
ing to a navy officer, particularly to one command- 
ing a destroyer. For the destroyer, despite its 
power for destruction, is a delicate piece of mechan- 
ism, apt to suffer severely in a hard voyage. Taus- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 85 

sig's flotilla had not escaped all damage. One ship 
had lost its fireroom ventilator, another had 
trouble with its condensers. But some patching 
up had been done on the voyage, and Taussig 
thought the Admiral a man with whom excuses 
would be poor policy, so he responded : 

" We are ready now, sir, that is, as soon as we 
finish refueling. Of course you know how de- 
stroyers are — always wanting something done to 
them. But this is war, and we are ready to make 
the best of things and go to sea immediately." 

Greatly pleased the Admiral gave them four 
days, and at the expiration of that time our ships 
were hunting the German shark. 

British officers were greatly interested in the ap- 
pearance of the American ships, which were rather 
more graceful and lithe in their lines than British 
vessels of the same class. 

" You know," said one Briton to an American 
friend, " I like our destroyers' appearance better 
than yours. Ours look more sturdy and busi- 
nesslike. Yours seem rather feminine in ap- 
pearance." 

" Well," responded the other, " that may be so, 
but you should remember what Kipling says, * The 
female of the species is more deadly than the 
male.' " 

Before describing the services of our destroyers 
in the war zone or recounting their manifold and 
exciting experiences with " Fritz," it will be worth 
while to explain the plan of campaign which it was 



86 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

determined they should follow in the endeavor to 
defeat the purposes of the " vipers of the sea." 

During the early months of the German sub- 
marine campaign the Allies were apparently un- 
able to devise a systematic and effective method of 
meeting this new and grave peril. Arming neutral 
merchant ships, an expedient of which great things 
had been expected, proved largely futile. The 
strength of the submarine lay in its invisibility, 
and an armed merchantman could no more see be- 
neath the surface of the ocean than could one un- 
armed. In six weeks of spring and early summer 
of 1917 thirty armed merchantmen were torpedoed 
and sunk off Queenstown and in no instance was 
a periscope sighted by the victim. A ship was 
visible to the commander of the U-boat peering 
through his periscope at the distance of fifteen 
miles ; a lookout on a merchantman was especially 
sharp-eyed if he could pick up the periscope at a 
distance of a mile. 

Where the arming of merchantmen really 
counted was in compelling the submarines to use 
their torpedoes. Lurking unseen below the sur- 
face the U-boat commander could tell whether or 
not a prospective victim was armed. If it showed 
no guns he would come boldly to the surface and 
attack it with his guns. For the weakness of the 
submarine lay in the limited number of torpedoes 
it could carry. Few were provided with more than 
twelve; more had only eight. These missiles were 
expensive and slow to manufacture. The greatest 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 87 

economy in their use was enjoined upon every com- 
mander, and to a very great extent the cruising 
radius of the U-boats was determined by their sup- 
plies of torpedoes, for once they were exhausted 
there was nothing to be done but to return to the 
base. But no prudent U-boat commander would 
ever engage an armed merchantman on the surface 
with his own guns, for while the merchantman 
could stand a considerable pounding, one shot 
would put the submarine out of action. Accord- 
ingly, as a rule, the appearance of guns on the 
deck of a ship either led the submarine commander 
to abandon his attack altogether, or to destroy his 
victim with a torpedo, remaining himself sub- 
merged. 

While the arming of merchant vessels had thus 
proved to be no complete solution of the problem 
presented to the Allies, the method of their anti- 
submarine campaign had thus far proved equally 
ineffective. Cruising about the illimitable ocean 
wastes and looking for submarines which would 
show at most a tube three inches in diameter stick- 
ing up from some square miles of ocean was a 
profitless pursuit. The area which the British 
sought to patrol around Queenstown alone com- 
prised about twenty-five thousand square miles. 
As many destroyers could hardly have kept it 
clear, and England had but about ten or fifteen 
available after the Grand Fleet, the hospital ships, 
the Calais crossing and the Mediterranean were 
provided for. Of course this was an utterly in- 



88 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

adequate force and the process of starving Eng- 
land by sinking her food ships was proceeding 
apace when an entirely new line of strategy was 
adopted about the time the Americans entered the 
war. 

Admiral Sims describes the strategy by which 
the submarine was finally beaten as the substitu- 
tion of a policy of making him come to the de- 
stroyer, for the earlier system which sent the de- 
stroyers out to hunt the unseen U-boat cruising 
silently beneath the surface of the sea. The 
method of the hunter of big carnivorous game was 
to be followed. A bait was to be set — in this in- 
stance a flotilla of ships which would attract the 
prowling U-boat to his doom. For with the im- 
proved devices for detecting and attacking the 
undersea raiders about all that was necessary was 
to have approximate knowledge of their where- 
abouts to accomplish their destruction. This plan, 
however, which involved gathering merchant ves- 
sels in convoys of as many as thirty or forty in a 
fleet and having them escorted through the danger 
zone by destroyers, and the even smaller " subma- 
rine chasers," was not put into effect until the fall 
after the arrival of our first flotilla, and our men 
were at first given experience on submarine patrol 
under the general command of the British admiral. 
In these early days the task of our destroyer com- 
manders was to search for submarines, to pick up 
survivors of attacks that had been reported by 
wireless, occasionally to escort single ships through 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 89 

the danger zone, and to hurry to the rescue if word 
came of some vessel in danger. 

The hunting for submarines was a rather fruit- 
less occupation at the best, although the British 
information bureau had done wonders in the way 
of keeping track of tlie whereabouts of the pests. 
Amazing as it may seem the approximate Ipcation 
of every U-boat at sea was known, and its move- 
ments day by day recorded on a great chart at the 
British Admiralty. Many factors enabled the in- 
telligence officers to collect this information. To 
begin with a submarine could seldom leave its base 
at Zeebrugge or Ostend without the fact being 
known to the British. The waters outside those 
ports are shallow and were kept heavily mined by 
the Allies, so that before a submarine could make 
its way out several surface ships would be occupied 
for several hours clearing a way for its passage. 
This would, of course, be reported by observant 
British aircraft. Every wireless message sent by 
Fritz — and he loved to talk — was picked up and 
analyzed by many British ships. A device known 
as the radio-direction finder enabled observers to 
determine the precise location from which any mes- 
sage was sent. Moreover, all the wireless operators 
on the innumerable merchant ships of the Allies 
which swarmed over the ocean were directed to 
send instantly to London headquarters the latitude 
and longitude of every submarine they might sight, 
whether it attacked or not. With all these data at 
hand the intelligence department at London kept a 



90 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

watch on each submarine from the time it emerged 
from its base until it returned thereto — or was 
marked off the board as sunk. 

A great chart was used to show the location of 
the fleets that were being convoyed toward Eng- 
land by watchful destroyers and the lurking sub- 
marines lying in wait for them. As the latter made 
but about ten knots an hour on the surface and 
less when submerged, it was not diflflcult to keep 
reasonably accurate records of their locations and 
to warn the approaching merchantmen of their 
danger. 

A curious fact in connection with this work of 
the intelligence department was that several of the 
submarine commanders developed such distinctive 
personal traits that the studious observers could 
tell just who was operating in a given territory, 
and forecast with some degree of accuracy what his 
next move would be. Hans Rose, for example, the 
officer who brought the U'53 to Newport, was well 
known to the officers of the intelligence service, 
although none of them ever saw him, during the 
war. It was the common remark when one boat 
would suddenly appear, torpedo in rapid succes- 
sion half a dozen ships, and as suddenly vanish, 
" Well, old Hans is out again." He was never 
guilty as were some of his fellows of shelling or 
running down boats filled with helpless survivors 
of sunken ships. On the contrary, he would usually 
wait around until the boats were filled, pass them 
a tow line and keep them together until a destroyer 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 91 

appeared in the offing. Then he would submerge, 
leaving them safe. But he was ready enough to 
fight when fighting was the play. It was he who 
torpedoed our destroyer Jacob Jones, of which ex- 
ploit more later. 

It was a part of the distinctly unselfish service 
that the United States rendered in this war that 
our forces on land for part of the time, and on sea 
throughout the war, were under command of officers 
of our allies. National pride was set aside in the 
sincere desire to do all that would contribute most 
to military and naval efficiency. Accordingly, our 
flotillas of destroyers, as fast as they reached 
Queenstown, passed into command of Admiral 
Bayly. He at once began to give the officers in- 
struction as to tactics and methods drawn from 
the long and bitter experience of the British with 
the submarine foe. It was a counsel of incessant 
vigilance. There could be no relaxation, for none 
could tell at what moment or in what place the 
unseen foe might strike. The foe was brave even 
to desperation and full of cunning devices. To 
rush madly upon a periscope with the purpose of 
ramming the boat beneath it seemed good strategy, 
but beware lest the periscope be only a dummy at- 
tached to a mine which, when struck, would de- 
molish the ship touching it. It was better to shell 
periscopes from a distance. The ordinary dictates 
of humanity must in many instances be dis- 
regarded. Should a ship be torpedoed the de- 
stroyer on guard must not go to the aid of the sur- 



92 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

vivors — it must go after the submarine. There was 
danger in responding too unquestioningly to wire- 
less calls for aid. They might come from a friendly 
ship in sore distress. But again they might be sent 
out by an enemy submarine as a trap. And float- 
ing boats apparently holding the exhausted sur- 
vivors of some submarine attack must be warily 
studied from afar, for they too were often devices 
of the enemy to lure the victim within striking dis- 
tance. Searchlights or, for that matter, any lights 
at all at night were banned. The risk of collision 
was less than that of attracting the attention of a 
watchful Hun. Smoking on deck was barred — 
even a cigarette might attract the foe. The course 
should always be " zig-zagged," and anything like a 
regular order avoided. Above all things, the de- 
stroyer commanders were warned against under- 
rating their enemy who was described as dashing, 
cunning and resourceful. 

The first flotilla of American destroyers went out 
on patrol four days after their arrival at Queens- 
town. May 17th a second detachment of six ships 
arrived, and thereafter nearly every week saw a 
new squadron coming into the harbor. It is a 
curious fact that while these ships were dispatched 
from our shores with the utmost secrecy, and even 
without opportunity for their men — who were 
largely college boys and other volunteers — to bid 
their people farewell, their coming was perfectly 
well known to the enemy. The first mines laid off 
the entrance to Queenstown harbor by the Germans 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 93 

in many months were laid only a day or two before 
the arrival of our first flotilla. This might have 
seemed a mere coincidence but for the fact that just 
before the arrival of parent ships at intervals of 
several days the same thing occurred. The mines 
were swept up by the British and no damage re- 
sulted from them. On one occasion, just as a num- 
ber of the American oflScers were dining with Ad- 
miral Bayly, a number of the mines were exploded 
with a prodigious uproar so near Admiralty House 
that the windows rattled. The Admiral dryly re- 
marked that it was an indication of the warm 
welcome the enemy had prepared for the Yankee 
visitors. 

All through the spring the American squadrons 
kept coming into Queenstown, and by July 5th we 
had thirty-four destroyers on that station, practi- 
cally our full strength during the war. The greet- 
ing of the English people to our officers and men 
was the very heartiest. Seven years earlier Ad- 
miral Sims, speaking at a banquet in the Guildhall, 
had said, " If the time should ever come when the 
British Empire is menaced by a European coali- 
tion. Great Britain can rely upon the last ship, the 
last dollar, the last man and the last drop of blood 
of her kindred beyond the sea." It was an in- 
discreet thing for an American naval officer to say, 
and the Admiral was formally reprimanded by his 
government for it, although the vast majority of 
our people warmly applauded the sentiment and 
rejoiced that it had been spoken by a man in the 



94 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

Tiniform of our navy. But after seven years the 
prophecy which ofiBcialdom had repudiated had 
come literally to pass and England recalled the 
words with enthusiasm. They were used as a text 
over moving pictures showing the arrival of our 
ships and served as the theme of innumerable news- 
paper articles. 

Our destroyer base was maintained at Queens- 
town and the strength there, and in the neighbor- 
ing Irish city of Cork, of the Sinn Fein or Irish 
revolutionary party, led to some unfortunate com- 
plications. The members of that order, who were 
greatly in the majority in that neighborhood were 
frankly hostile to Great Britain and friendly to 
Germany. They aided the enemy with information 
whenever possible, helped German spies to land in 
Ireland, and concealed them when there. Their 
plots were distinctly dangerous to the American 
navy, and they even strove to attack it from within. 
Knowing that we had many sailors, and some of- 
ficers of Irish extraction they endeavored to enlist 
the sympathies of these in the Sinn Fein move- 
ment, but absolutely without success for the 
Yankee blue jackets had crossed the sea to fight 
the Hun and were not to be diverted from that 
purpose to take part in any family quarrel. As a 
result bad feeling grew. There were frequent af- 
frays on the streets, and in one of these a hooligan 
was killed under circumstances which led the Irish 
jury to speedily acquit the sailor who struck the 
blow. Often American sailors were seriously 




A Flotilla of Destroyers Steaming Into Harbor 




One of the Destroyers that Kept the "Sea Lanes" Open 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 95 

beaten up by Irish mobs. Much of the trouble 
arose from the attention shown by American blue 
jackets to black-haired Irish colleens, and perhaps 
individual jealousy had its share in the assaults 
commonly ascribed to the machinations of Sinn 
Fein. At any rate the situation became so serious 
that Admiral Sims was compelled to declare the 
city of Cork out of bounds for sailors — much to the 
grief of the tradesmen of that town, who had found 
profit in the daily visits of men who had from 
1200,000 to 1300,000 a month to spend. But the 
feeling was growing so strong that it was found 
that the jackies were getting weapons and prepar- 
ing for a pitched battle with Sinn Fein, so Cork 
remained closed to our men until the close of the 
war. A picturesque feature of the case was that 
when it was found that the jackies could no longer 
go to the colleens of Cork the girls came to them. 
A daily afternoon train was established, and one 
returning about midnight. Known as " the doves' 
express" these trains contributed greatly to the 
content of our sailors and their fair friends. 

The Sinn Fein sentiment in Ireland led to all 
sorts of curious rumors as to the part the United 
States would take in freeing Ireland from British 
domination. On one occasion. Admiral Bayly de- 
siring a brief vacation, the British Admiralty 
transferred his command to Admiral Sims. It was 
an international courtesy of an unprecedented 
character, for never before had a British fleet been 
under command of a foreign admiral. In pur- 



96 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

suance of his new functions Admiral Sims went to 
Queenstown, took possession of Admiralty House 
and hoisted his flag over it, the flag of Admiral 
Bayly having previously been hauled down. From 
this slight interchange of courtesies rose a report 
that excited all Ireland — namely, that after a bitter 
quarrel between the two admirals the British com- 
mander had been violently ejected, and that the 
United States had taken over the government of 
the country and would at once expel the oppressors. 
Despite these embarrassing and sometimes men- 
acing conditions Queenstown remained our chief 
naval base throughout the war. We had at most 
times eight thousand seamen and officers there. 
From its port our destroyers went out on their 
trips so full of constant hardship, and which not 
infrequently ended in disaster. On a hillside back 
of it in a little cemetery lay the bodies of hundreds 
of the dead of the Lusitania, unidentified, or left 
there for one reason or another by their own people. 
This seemed to give the port especial fitness as the 
center of American activities for the punishment 
of the lurking U-boats, whose most dastardly ex- 
ploit was the sinking of that unarmed passenger 
ship and the foul murder of hundreds of women 
and children traveling upon her on errands of 
peace. 



CHAPTER IV 

Protecting merchant ships — Camouflage. — Aiming a torpedo. — 
The depth bomb. — The listening device or hydroplane, — Sub- 
marine chasers and college crews. — The convoy system. — • 
Hostility of merchant captains. — Method of the convoy. — 
Capture of • U-58. — Attack on the Cassin. — Loss of the Jacob 
Jones and the San Diego. 

Our nation had to help feed its allies long before 
it was able to fight for them. And so during the 
long months occupied in raising and drilling our 
armies, preparatory to ferrying them to France, 
the navy was engaged in protecting the ships bear- 
ing food to England from the attacks of the 
enemy's underwater boats. It was not until after 
we had entered upon the war that this protection 
was made effective, and its efficiency then was ac- 
complished more by a new system than by any new 
weapons. 

Some of the most useful devices for outwitting, 
or for destroying the U-boat had been emplo3^ed be- 
fore we took up the fight. Most interesting among 
these was the device of " camouflage," or so paint- 
ing vessels as to decrease their visibility or to dis- 
guise the direction in which they were proceeding. 
Though this was brought to a high point of per- 
fection in this war, it did not originate then, nor 
was it confined to naval operations. Disguising or 
concealing ships, batteries or bodies of troops has 

97 



98 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

been a practice in every war. In the World War, 
however, the art had been developed into a science 
and had been given a new name drawn from the 
French which has passed into all languages. 

Camouflage, so far as its application to ships is 
concerned, means the employment of paint on their 
hulls in such a way as either to make them blend 
with the sea and the horizon and become scarcely 
distinguishable at a distance, or to deceive the eye 
as to their proportions and the direction in which 
they are going. The former, known as the " dazzle '^ 
system, was in use chiefly by foreign navies while 
the latter was brought to its highest perfection in 
our own service. There was nothing new, of course, 
in the effort to make a ship difficult of detection at 
a distance. The war paint used by all navies for 
scores of years, known as " battleship gray " was 
an essay in this direction. But the new camou- 
flage was something very different. Ships went out 
to sea striped like zebras or tigers, except that their 
stripes were of all the primary colors and ran at 
all angles on the hull. They were striped and 
spotted and streaked with red, yellow, blue, green, 
white and black in a way that seemed to the un- 
trained observer to be dictated only by childish 
fancy but which was in fact in accordance with 
abstruse principles of optics which I shall not 
attempt to set forth here. But the effect at a dis-' 
tance was amazing. A ship thus decorated would 
sink into the gray of sky and sea and be practically 
undistinguishable. Or, if another type of camou- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 99 

flage was employed, she would seem to be steaming 
in a direction wholly different from the course she 
was actually following, or would perhaps appear 
to be a craft of perhaps three hundred feet in 
length when, in fact, she was over twice that long. 
Disguising the direction in which a ship was pro- 
gressing was a most effective guard against success- 
ful torpedo attack. For it destroyed the accuracy 
of the enemy's aim. It must be remembered that in 
launching a torpedo the missile is not aimed — the 
whole U-boat must be aimed at the intended victim 
as the torpedo tubes are stationary. To secure the 
proper direction the commander of the submarine 
must take successive sights of his victim, and ac- 
curately estimate her speed and the direction in 
which she is steaming. It is, of course, his study 
to get as near her as possible without attracting her 
attention. Accordingly after his first sight of the 
ship he submerges, having noted on a pad her pres- 
ent position and her course. After a few minutes 
under water, creeping up on her, he rises again, 
swiftly notes her position at that moment and 
again disappears, making his memorandum as be- 
fore. After three or four such swift glimpses he 
is provided, unless his eyes have been deceived, 
with the data from wiiich he can figure the exact 
point at which his torpedo will strike that swiftly 
moving hull. It was the business of the camou- 
fleurs to deceive his eye. Whether the system ac- 
tually accomplished this end or not was a matter 
of violent controversy in naval circles during the 



100 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

war, and the question has not yet been determined 
to the conviction of all. " The effect of good camou- 
flage was remarkable," wrote one American naval 
officer. " I have often looked at a fellow ship in 
the convoy on our quarter on exactly the same 
courses we were, but on account of her camouflage 
she appeared to be making right for us on a course 
at least forty-five degrees different from the one she 
was actually steering. 

" The deception was remarkable even under such 
conditions as these and of course a U-boat with its 
hasty limited observation was much more likely to 
be fooled." 

In the United States a regular organization of 
navy camoufleurs was formed and some of the most 
eminent artists of the time turned from the practice 
of " art for art's sake " to the laborious task of 
painting parti-colored stripes on huge steel ships 
for patriotism's sake. The Navy Department, by a 
series of investigations, convinced itself of the 
value of the camoufleur's art and all of our trans- 
ports together with some of our fighting craft were 
thus decorated. An official report declared that an 
oil-tanker was so painted that she was almost in- 
visible at a distance of three miles, while big liners 
of five hundred feet in length were treated to such 
bizarre coats that at a distance of four or five miles 
it was impossible to judge of their course. In fact, 
the art of camouflage seemed to have added a 
fourth to the three creatures of which John Hay 
wrote: 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 101 

"There are three species of creatures that when they seem 
coming are going, 
When they seem going they come, — diplomats, women 
and crabs." 



To which list might well be added the camouflaged 
ship. 

The most effective single weapon in the offensive 
fight upon the U-boat was devised by British navy 
officers before the entrance of the United States 
upon the war. But the depth bomb, in the opera- 
tion of which there is a tragic mystery that stimu- 
lates the imagination, was vigorously employed by 
our ships, and the curious Y-shaped guns which 
threw two of the " ash-cans " at once to starboard 
and port were familiar portions of the armament 
of our destroyers. 

Every boy at all familiar with firearms knows 
that a rifle shot fired at the water at an angle is 
deflected, and even if fired straight down is so 
quickly deprived of any force that it will do no 
injury to a fish or a duck two feet or so beneath 
the surface. This fact made the submarines safe 
from gunshot as soon as they had sunk a few feet 
beneath the waves. Their foes might know pre- 
cisely where they were, might indeed be able to see 
one clearly, but were unable to deliver any effective 
stroke. The same principle makes it needless to 
carry the armor of dreadnoughts more than three 
feet below the water line, and all the chief navies 
have been experimenting with a " non-riccochet- 



102 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ting " shell in the endeavor to find some way of 
jiiercing the water and the armor both. 

The story is that one day a British cruiser in the 
North Sea narrowly escaped a torpedo from a sub- 
marine which was observed as it let fly its missile. 
Speeding to the spot the officers of the cruiser 
could see the long black hull of the submarine rest- 
ing quietly on the bottom, perhaps forty feet below 
them but as safe as if it were forty miles away. A 
report of the incident was made to Admiral Jelli- 
coe, with whom at the time was Admiral Madden. 

" Wouldn't it have been great," said Madden, " if 
we'd had a mine aboard so designed that it would 
not explode until it had sunk to a certain depth? 
With that we could have put Fritz out of business 
easily." 

This merely casual speculation gave the idea of 
the depth bomb, and the need being made known to 
the Admiralty experts the actual device was soon 
forthcoming. It was simplicity itself. A big steel 
cylinder was filled with TNT — the most powerful 
of all explosives. At the end of this cylinder was 
a screw, not unlike the propeller of a ship. As the 
huge shell sunk through the water the friction 
caused this screw to revolve, and as it did so it 
thrust a rod deeper and deeper into the shell. At 
a certain point, which could be fixed in advance by 
a simple device, the end of the rod came into con- 
tact with a detonator and the whole charge was set 
off. These depth bombs, or " ash-cans " as the 
sailors called them from their resemblance to that 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 103 

harmless domestic utensil, were manufactured by 
the tens of thousands and formed part of the equip- 
ment of every warship in the submarine zone. At 
first they were merely dropped over the stern of the 
craft at the point where it was thought a submarine 
might be lurking, the ship itself speeding on at full 
steam lest she be caught by the explosion of her 
own bomb. But before long the curious double- 
barrel cannon, with the barrels extending to right 
and left like a Y, which with a light charge would 
throw the projectiles about fifty yards to either side 
of the boat came into common use. However 
courageous the crew of a destroyer might be they 
felt a certain comfort in knowing that the " ash- 
cans " would be well clear of their ship before the 
machinery for touching off the explosive began to 
work. 

The effectiveness of the depth bomb rested upon 
a fundamental principle of physics with which 
every schoolboy is familiar, namely, that liquids 
submitted to pressure transmit that pressure un- 
diminished in every direction. The water, instead 
of being a cushion to gradually take up the force of 
an explosion, transmitted that force to a very con- 
siderable distance so that a submarine within one 
hundred feet of an exploding depth bomb would 
have her plates driven inward, causing a fatal leak. 
Even when the explosion occurred at a greater dis- 
tance the result was sure to be disastrous and 
sometimes fatal. For the submarine, terrible in 
offense, is a weakling in defense. A comparatively 



104 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

slight shock served to injure the steering machin- 
ery, or put the lighting plant out of commission so 
that the crew would be left groping in darkness at 
the bottom of the sea. The effect of such a situa- 
tion on the morale of the best crew can well be 
imagined. At any moment a second explosion may 
crush in the plates of their ship and drown them 
like rats. Or the machinery may have been so dis- 
organized by the first shock that there remains no 
chance of reaching the surface and all must suffo- 
cate slowly and miserably. Even should the sub- 
marine commander determine to blow his tanks 
and rise to the surface, seeking mercy from his as- 
sailant, he could feel no certainty that a sudden 
shot before he was sufficiently out of water to indi- 
cate his surrender might not send him again to the 
bottom a hopeless wreck. For the nature of the 
submarine and the record made by its officers did 
not encourage trustfulness on the part of the Allied 
navy officers, and they were never slow to deliver 
the fatal stroke. 

When to all these considerations was added the 
tremendous force of a depth-bomb explosion the ef- 
fect of such an attack on the nerves of those sus- 
taining it may well have been racking. Those who 
have been through it say that the concussion was as 
great as that attending the simultaneous firing of 
all the fourteen-inch guns of a battleship. Some- 
times the submarine attacked would be within the 
radius of several of these explosions at the same 
time. German sailors who had been through this 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 105 

experience came to the surface showing symptoms 
analogous to those of shell shock. 

A submarine crushed at the bottom of the sea 
left no one to tell the story of the tragedy. Its dead 
could tell no tales. Once, at a time prior to the 
war, a Japanese submarine was disabled at the 
bottom of a harbor, and despite all efforts could not 
be raised in season to save the lives of her crew. 
With characteristic Japanese devotion to duty the 
captain of the doomed ship sat at his little table, 
and hour by hour wrote down the tale of the grad- 
ually wasting oxygen, the increasing difficulty of 
breathing, the deaths one after the other of his men, 
and — crowning evidence of discipline and devotion 
— took upon himself the blame for the disaster and 
besought the forgiveness of his Mikado. It was 
one of the touching human documents of all his- 
tory. 

But the Germans left none such. Our nearest 
approach to a knowledge of what occurred on a 
doomed submarine must be conjecture based upon 
what could be seen from above. Indeed it was not 
always possible to determine wiiether a " sub " had 
actually been destroyed even wdien the circum- 
stances all seemed to point to its destruction. The 
British Admiralty was very skeptical of claims of 
this sort and the proof had to be incontrovertible 
before a destroyer commander would get credit for 
a " sub -' destroyed. 

A destroyer on patrol would frequently cruise 
for weeks without getting a sign of a submarine. 



106 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

But when the cry came from the bridge "Peri- 
scope ! Starboard bow ! " there would be such a 
racing of men and machines as could never be seen 
in similar space elsewhere. The captain was on the 
bridge in half a minute glasses in hand sweeping 
the quarter of the sea indicated by the lookout. 
" There it is. About 250 yards to starboard, sir." 
Sure enough. A slender tube, little larger than 
the handle of a rake stood up about three feet above 
the surface of the sea, through which it was cutting, 
leaving a white wake behind. Even as he spoke it 
disappeared. Bells meantime were ringing in the 
engine room of the destroyer and the whirring of 
the great fans putting on the forced draft could be 
heard on deck. With a whirl of the w^heel the cap- 
tain turned the ship's prow toward the spot at 
which the tube had disappeared. Shrill whistles 
rang along the destroyer's decks and men came 
running to their posts at the guns, at the depth 
bombs and at the torpedo tubes. A command from 
the bridge and the Y-gun with a dull report tossed 
two bombs into the air to fall at about the spot 
where it was estimated the enemy might be lying. 
A small bright colored buoy also went overboard 
to mark the spot. The ship went speeding onward 
and none too fast, for soon the water astern lifted 
high in a pillar of green that quickly broke into 
white foam, while through the air resounded a 
deep boom mingled with the rush of many waters. 
Had the engine of death found its mark? That 
was a question which none could answer for the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 107 

moment. The destroyer continued its cruising, 
dropping one or two more bombs, and keeping a 
vigilant eye for signs of distress from below. Be- 
fore long these began to appear. Amidst the dead 
fish which plentifully besprinkled the ocean there 
appeared patches of oil, that made the ocean slick 
and greasy. But that was not definite proof. A 
submarine might lose a little oil without being seri- 
ously hurt. Moreover, some shrewd Hun com- 
manders had been known to let out a few gallons of 
oil to make the destroyer think her job was done 
and no more depth bombs need be dropped. So 
oil, except in large quantities, had ceased to excite 
those who sought the death of the German shark. 
Bits of wooden wreckage coming to the surface 
count for more, but there is little wood in a sub- 
marine and one might long look for it in vain. It 
is probable that many a German submarine paid 
the last debt without the knowledge of the British 
collector. 

An anti-submarine device which had its origin 
after the Americans " came in," and to the perfec- 
tion of which our scientists contributed materially, 
was the listening device, or hydrophone which had 
reached such perfection by the close of the war that 
experienced navy officers said it furnished the final 
answer to the problem of the submarine. 

The fact that w^ater conveyed sound even more 
rapidly and more distinctly than the air had long 
been familiar to scientists and navigators. It had 
been made the basis for the submarine signals 



108 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

which had been employed in the practical business 
of navigation. The Nantucket light-ship, for 
example, is fitted with submarine bells and ocean 
steamships coming from Europe often pick up the 
ship in this way in weather when the light is indis- 
tinguishable. The submarine telephone had been 
known before the war, but had been put to little 
practical use. 

With these instruments as a guide it was not 
long before the navies of tlie Allied nations had per- 
fected a device by whicli not only could the ap- 
proach of a submarine be detected, but the direc- 
tion from which she was coming and the distance 
were indicated with almost absolute accuracy. The 
United States took the lead in this work, which was 
participated in by scientists in our universities, 
navy officers and the research departments of our 
great electrical concerns. The British were 
frankly skeptical but permitted an officer of the 
United States navy to use certain of their vessels 
for experimental purposes late in the fall of 1887, 
when there was at least promise that the problem 
had been solved. His tests demonstrated the 
superiority of the American inventions known as 
" K-tubes " and " C-tubes," by which vessels could 
be detected at a distance of twenty miles. The 
British Nash-fish and ^hark-fin were inferior in 
that they did not attempt to discover the direction 
from which the tell-tale sound came. 

The chief trouble with these devices, and one 
that only long training on the part of the listener 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 109 

could overcome, was the painstaking care with 
which they gathered up every sort of a sound that 
the ocean held in its mysterious depths and re- 
ported it to the listening ear. We think of the 
depths of the sea as a place of eternal silence. The 
hydrophone made it seem only a little quieter than 
Broadway. The subtle machine picked up every 
sound from the splash of the wave on top to the 
groan of a poor dead wreck on the bottom, swing- 
ing with the current and racking its old bones in 
torment. The men at the ear-pieces learned to dis- 
criminate between these voices of the deep. They 
learned that a queer swishing sound like escaping 
steam was not in any way connected with an enemy 
craft but indicated the playful progress of a school 
of porpoises. Whales caused considerable trouble, 
the sound of their great fins and tails resembling 
with curious accuracy that of a submarine's pro- 
peller. More than once an unhappy cetacean was 
blown to pieces by a torpedo or shell launched in 
his direction on the theory that he was a sneaking 
submarine. 

All these weapons for the circumvention of the 
submarine presupposed the existence of a large 
fleet upon which they might be employed. That 
fleet neither the United States nor her allies pos- 
sessed to the degree that was desirable. For it 
should be a fleet of destroyers. No other naval 
craft was swift and handy enough to fill the precise 
place. But of destroyers when we entered the 
war our navy possessed only 105. The British 



110 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

navy was more adequately equipped, but, as has 
already been shown, the demand for its destroyers 
was so great as to leave only an insufficient 
number for the vital duty of guarding the food 
ships. 

So it became at once necessary to supplement the 
fleets of destroyers with such vessels as could be 
raked and scraped up along the wharves and har- 
bors, or could be built rapidly for this class of 
service. Yachts, often presented by their owners 
to the nation, furnished part of this new fleet. 
Small power boats, and especially swift racers that 
had been built for purposes of sport, were pressed 
into service for guard boats about our harbors at a 
time when it was feared the enemy might try to 
raid our shores. The most important service, how- 
ever, was done by a class of boats known as sub- 
marine chasers, many of which were merely pleas- 
ure craft made over for this purpose, but most of 
which were specially built for the navy. Built of 
wood, the largest but 110 feet in length, while some 
were as small as 36 feet, these vessels could be 
constructed speedily, and by the time the war was 
approaching its end we had a fleet of several hun- 
dred. They were manned very largely by youths 
from the Naval Reserve — college undergraduates 
often — and they braved dangers and accomplished 
service that aroused the admiration of navy officers 
of all nations. All over the face of the waters they 
were scattered — from Queenstown to Corfu, with 
stations at Gibraltar, Plymouth and Brest. In all, 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 111 

400 of these pigmy ships were built and about 170 
were distributed along the European seas. Small 
though they were they drew blood, and Admiral 
Sims declares that several enemy submarines fell 
to their account and that " on the day that hostili- 
ties ceased, the Allies generally recognized that this 
tiny vessel with the ' listening devices ' which made 
it so efficient, represented one of the most satisfac- 
tory ' direct answers ' to the submarine which had 
been developed by the war. Had it not been that 
the war ended before enough destroyers could be 
spared from their convoy duty to assist with their 
greater speed and offensive power in hunting 
groups of these tiny craft it is certain that they 
would have soon become a still more important 
factor in destroying submarines and interfering 
with their operations." 

The personnel of the submarine chasers — some- 
times called " the suicide fleet " was picturesque. 
Very few were experienced sailors and of the of- 
ficers fewer yet were Annapolis graduates — prob- 
ably not more than five per cent. The sailors were 
gathered up from the Naval Reserve and the vari- 
ous training camps, and were mostly boys from the 
colleges, farms and shops of the middle west, en- 
tirely unused to salt water and the heaving surges 
of the ocean. There were some amateur yachtsmen 
among them, but the mass were the veriest land- 
lubbers. When the first squadron of 110-footers 
staggered into port at Queenstown after a winter 
trip across the Atlantic a considerable number of 



112 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

the men — officers as well as jackies — had to be sent 
to the hospital for seasickness. 

" Those boys can't bring a ship across the ocean," 
remarked some one to an American officer at 
Plymouth. 

" Perhaps they can't," he answered, " but there is 
a flotilla of thirty-six in the harbor below you that 
they have just brought in." 

The great percentage of college boys among those 
who manned " the suicide fleet " was a source of 
pride to the service. They flocked to it from Yale, 
Harvard, Columbia and Princeton and from such 
" fresh w^ater " colleges as Chicago and Michigan. 
Trained navy officers said after they had been given 
opportunity to get their sea-legs, that they rapidly 
overhauled the graduates of Annapolis in all the 
technical w^ork of navigating their vessels, while 
having an initiative and a power to grapple with 
new and intricate problems which was not mani- 
fested by graduates of our naval academy. Ad- 
miral Sims was so impressed by this that he urged 
that hereafter a college education should be com- 
bined with a short intensive technical course at the 
naval academy. It is worthy of note that the sub- 
marine chasers built for the British government 
were carried across the Atlantic on the decks of 
ocean ships, while our boys took their craft across 
under their own power. It is true, however, that 
as a rule the British chasers were thirty feet 
shorter than our type. 

At Corfu, just at the point where the Adriatic 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 113 

opens into the Mediterranean through the narrow 
strait of Otranto, a flotilla of submarine chasers 
did some notable work during the last few months 
of the war. Thirty-six of these pigmy boats made 
the voyage from New London to Corfu under their 
own power, carefully shepherded of course by par- 
ent ships which carried stores of oil, for none of 
the little chasers could carry enough for fuel for 
more than two or three day's run. The oil was tran- 
shipped from the parent ship through hose while the 
vessels were all plowing along through the ocean at 
top speed, and frequently three of the baby fellows 
would be drawing their sustenance at the same mo- 
ment. The voyage was made without loss, and in 
such trim were the little bantams of the sea that, 
sighting a periscope as they passed Gibraltar, they 
made a vigorous attack on the submarine with all 
the skill and dash of veterans. 

The Adriatic, with its innumerable harbors 
and inlets, had been a great nest of Austrian sub- 
marines which, fitting out at Trieste, Durazzo or 
other ports under Austrian control would slip out 
into the Mediterranean and harry the British ships 
making for the Suez canal, or coming thither with 
food for the beleaguered British Isles. The Straits 
of Otranto, the one egress for these boats, were but 
forty miles wide, and thus not difficult to block. 
The water was very deep, more than half a mile, 
and for that reason a threatened submarine could 
not shield itself by lying on the bottom until pur- 
suit had passed over. Accordingly it was de- 



114 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

termined by the Allies to put a barrage there that 
would effectually end the raids of the Austrian 
underwater boats. This barrage was maintained 
in four lines of craft. First came a line of de- 
stroyers intended to prevent any raiding of the 
barrage by Austrian cruisers or other surface boats. 
Then a line of trawlers steaming steadily back and 
forth. Next a line made up of drifters, motor 
boats and chasers, and finally a line of sailing craft. 
Our men entered upon this service on the 18th of 
July, 1918, and discharged the monotonous duty of ■ 
the patrol until the armistice, four months later. 
The effect of the barrage was to put a summary 
end to Austrian submarine activities. Austrian 
reports Obtained after the close of the war showed 
that six submarines had been sunk during our 
participation in the barrage, but how many were 
to be credited to our men, and how many to the 
British cannot be determined. It was reported, 
however, that two weeks after the establishment of 
the barrage the Austrian crews mutinied and re- 
fused to attempt its passage declaring that it was 
certain death. 

Probably the most exciting service participated 
in by the crews of our chasers in the Adriatic was 
the bombardment of Durazzo in September, 1918. 
This picturesque Albanian town had served 
throughout the war as a base whereby Germany and 
Austria had sent supplies to Bulgaria. Late in 
the war the Allies had made up their minds to at- 
tack Bulgaria, a decision which might well have 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 115 

been reached long before. The first step was to 
destroy the base at Durazzo, and accordingly plans 
were made for its bombardment by British and 
Italian ships. In the actual bombardment the 
chasers with their pigmy guns could of course take 
no part, but to them was assigned the duty of 
patrolling steadily between the bombarding squad- 
ron and the harbor's mouth in order to intercept 
the submarines which the Austrians would un- 
questionably send out to attack the Allied fleet. To 
this duty twelve of the little ships were assigned. 

It was the purpose of the Allies simply to destroy 
the docks, storehouses and railroad sidings by 
the side of the harbor. The picturesque old town 
itself they would spare — not having the German 
lust for destruction for mere vandalism's sake. It 
was thought that two hour's shelling would ac- 
complish the end sought. Three Italian battle 
cruisers were to begin the work, retiring at the 
end of an hour for three British light cruisers that 
would complete it. While the town and harbor 
were heavily fortified it was not thought that much 
danger need be apprehended from the shore bat- 
teries. But the Austrians had a large force of 
submarines in the port and it was to guard against 
these that the American sub-chasers, manned and 
officered by college boys, were called into action. 

Under command of Captain C. P. Nelson the 
American chasers steamed from their base at Corfu 
to the Italian port of Drindisi, where they met the 
larger vessels of the British and Italian navies that 



116 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

were to undertake the bombardment. Thence it 
was a straight steam of several hours across the 
Adriatic to the threatened port. The chasers led 
the fleet and, as they made no attempt to slow up 
for the larger vessels, came in sight of Durazzo 
while the main fleet was still hull down below the 
horizon. There were known to be a number of 
Austrian destroyers within the harbor and Captain 
Nelson flaunted his almost defenseless chasers about 
its mouth in the hope that he might decoy some 
of the enemy out long enough for the fleet to come 
up and capture them. But the enemy was wary. 
Probably they knew well enough how much of a 
force was coming up out of the west, for whatever 
department of the Teutons in the war may have 
been inefficient, it was not the Intelligence Depart- 
ment. At any rate the foe was not to be coaxed 
out by false pretenses, and before long the sight 
of the on-coming fleet put an end to any hope of 
imposing upon him. 

Durazzo lies at the foot of a small gulf, about 
fifteen miles wide at its opening. Outside the line 
of the capes the cruisers steamed back and forth 
delivering their fire upon the docks, and the men- 
of-war lying at them. Closer to the shore were the 
chasers, with the water about them springing into 
foam as the shore batteries turned their guns on 
these frail craft, none of which could have with- 
stood the impact of a single four-inch shell. Each 
chaser kept directly abeam of the cruiser it had to 
protect and all eyes on the little craft were strained 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 117 

to discover the telltale signs of a hostile submarine. 
When you think of it that is not such an easy task 
for a bunch of college boys on a yacht-like boat, 
with the shells from a line of cruisers shrieking 
over their heads, and the missiles from half a dozen 
shore batteries beating the water into foam on all 
sides of them. What they had to look for was a 
slender tube, not more than three inches in. 
diameter, slipping through the water. Not an ob- 
ject to at once attract attention at best. But with 
all the rest of the panorama to distract attention 
it would have been little wonder if the slinking 
Hun had got out to sea without detection. But 
he did not. 

Suddenly the last boat in the line of chasers, No. 
129 was its romantic name, was seen to turn sud- 
denly on its course and go chasing madly off in 
precisely the opposite direction to that on which her 
course had been laid. She flew no signal to explain 
the sudden change, but on all the other boats every 
one knew that a torpedo had been sighted. On No. 
215, her nearest neighbor, discussion as to whether 
they should go to her aid was suddenly stopped by 
the appearance of a cleft in the smooth water such 
as would be made by the dorsal fin of a big shark. 
It was moving swiftly toward the nearest 
British cruiser. " Ilere's our sub ! " was the cry, 
and in a moment with the gyrations of No. 129 
forgotten No. 215 and No. 128 were turning their 
guns loose on this foe. The second shot from the 
former chaser apparently hit the periscope, and 



118 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

the submarine began to submerge. But the two 
chasers were on him like a pack of dogs on a hare 
run to earth. Depth bombs were flying to either 
side from their Y-guns and the water all about was 
being thrown up in great geysers as the sea was 
torn to pieces in the search for the lurking enemy. 
At last with the foam there came flying up bits 
of steel and wood and wreckage of all kinds. It 
was apparent that one submarine had been done 
for. 

Then it was time to look for 'No. 129 that had 
opened the ball. Off in the distance she was des- 
cried showing a signal, " My engines disabled." 
Proceeding to her aid Commander Bastido, in com- 
mand of the flotilla, asked what had become of the 
submarine. 

" We smashed it," was the reply. So swift had 
been the rush of the chaser upon its prey that be- 
fore the submarine could sink from sight her enemy 
was above her, and dropped eight bombs which soon 
brought to the surface the wreckage which told 
of the end of one more viper of the sea. 

Two submarines in an hour's work was the record 
of the chasers, manned by college boys, on that day 
off Durazzo. From" both the British and Italian 
high naval commands came words of applause and 
thanks. This was the Italian message: 

" Italian ISTaval General Staff expresses highest apprecia- 
tion of useful and efficient work performed by United 
States chasers in protecting major vessels during action 
against Durazzo ; also vivid admiration of their brilliant and 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 119 

clever operations which resulted in sinking two enemy sub- 
marines." 



In the early spring of 1918, by common consent 
among the Allied navies, the craft intrusted with 
the work of protecting merchantmen from subma- 
rines, and hunting the latter down, were the de- 
stroyers and the submarine chasers. To these to 
some extent were added submarines themselves, 
and the so-called mystery ships with which the 
United States navy had but a slight experience. 
The depth bomb and the listening device made of 
these various craft effective enemies of the subma- 
rine, despite its invisibility and stealth. 

It was not altogether the increasing efficiency of 
these weapons and the rapid multiplication of the 
craft employing them that ultimately defeated the 
underseas campaign of the Hun and saved the 
Allies from defeat. The decrease in the number of 
sinkings of food ships, and the consequent renewal 
of the confidence of the Allies in ultimate victory 
began when the Allied war council enforced upon 
the merchantmen of the world the principle of the 
convoy, and supplied the armed vessels necessary 
to convoy those ships through the danger zone. 

The idea of grouping merchant vessels in con- 
siderable fleets and having them escorted by war- 
ships in time of war is no new thing. It has been 
practiced in all periods of the world's history, and 
particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies when the Spanish galleons bringing bullion 



120 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

from the mines of Mexico and Peru were thus 
guarded against the buccaneers and scarcely less 
predatory warships of England and France. 

During the period of the greatest submarine ac- 
tivity the attention of navy men was attracted to 
the fact that while merchant ships were being tor- 
pedoed to the amount of five hundred thousand 
tons or more a month the great battleships of the 
British navy, against which the enemy had every 
reason to exert his fullest powers of destruction, 
were virtually immune. Early in the war it is true, 
three British cruisers, the Cressy, Eogue and 
Abouhir, had been torpedoed in the same attack by 
the intrepid German Weddigen, and later the 
Audacious had been blown up in the Irish Sea, but 
the latter disaster was believed to be due to a mine. 
The main fleet was immune — and not only when it 
was lying at anchor in Scapa Flow, but even when 
it was ranging the North Sea in futile invitation 
to the enemy to come out and fight. Now this im- 
munity could only be ascribed to one thing — the 
fact that at all times every battleship was attended 
by her own cordon of destroyers, ceaselessly cir- 
cling about her, and on the alert all the time for 
any sign of a " sub." 

Shortly after Admiral Sims joined the Allied 
naval council in London on behalf of the United 
States he pointed out these facts to his associates, 
and declared that the plain lesson to be learned 
from them was that the merchant ships, now so 
vital to Allied safety, should be grouped as were 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 121 

the naval vessels, and like them be guarded by 
destroyers or other small craft. While agreeing 
with him the other members of the council insisted 
that, even if enough destroyers were available for 
this purpose, the captains of the merchantmen 
would not agree to be bound by the rules of the 
convoy. When the plan was first broached to these 
seamen they did in fact oppose it. They declared 
that sailing in specified order was an art in which 
navy officers had been trained all their lives, and 
that while it might be easy enough for them it was 
not part of a merchant sailor's education. More- 
over, the merchant ships were not equipped for 
maintaining precisely the same rate of speed, nor 
were they so swift to answer their helms as men- 
of-v/ar. It might be possible for a fleet of twenty 
men-of-war to steam in zigzag order, without lights, 
and through the blackness of a tempestuous night 
without disaster, but if a merchant fleet undertook 
it the wreckage would put the most active subma- 
rine to shame. The captains of fast vessels com- 
plained that under the convoy system they would 
have to adjust their speed to that of the slowest 
ship in the line and thus lose time — which is 
money. And all protested against the loss of time 
involved in holding ships in port until twenty or 
more could be ready to sail at once. A formal con- 
ference of merchant captains called at London to 
consider the convoy plan voted against it to a man. 
It may be noted in passing that after it was adopted 
and made compulsory it was most difficult to keep 



122 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

these old sea-dogs obedient to the rules of the con- 
voy and that most of the losses occurring thereafter 
resulted from some one of them breaking convoy 
with the idea that he could make better speed by 
himself. 

Navy officers were keen for the plan. They be- 
lieved not only that it would result in getting the 
merchantmen past the submarines with a greater 
percentage of safety, but that the rich convoys 
would act as a bait, bringing the sinister and 
stealthy undersea boats within striking distance. 
They were tired of roaming the broad and desolate 
expanse of sea week after week in the faint hope 
of catching a glimpse of a periscope. Under the 
proposed system the submarines would have to 
come where the destroyers would be, or go out of 
business altogether — and knowing how completely 
the Hun was relying upon his submarine campaign 
to win the war they were convinced that he would 
not be slow in coming to the attack. 

With the navy strongly for the plan it was deter- 
mined to give it a trial despite the opposition of 
the merchant marine. Accordingly a test was 
made with a fleet of eight-knot ships that were as- 
sembled at Gibraltar. Under command of captains 
strongly prejudiced against the plan, convoyed by 
a sufficient number of destroyers, this flotilla made 
the voyage safely through the very part of the sea 
that was most infested with submarines without 
loss. On the way, and before reaching the most 
dangerous waters the fleet was drilled ia all the 







u 

-a 
tli 



< 



M:.. 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 123 

arts of evading the submarine, and the doughty 
merchant captains discovered that they could do 
all the things that they had insisted were impos- 
sible. They could run at night without lights. 
They could keep distance like a fleet of cruisers. 
They could zigzag in a way to madden a Hun try- 
ing to keep tab on them through a periscope. With 
the conclusion of this experiment the method of 
beating the submarine was no longer in doubt. 
Thereafter all merchant ships bound for England 
or France traveled the seas in fleets and under 
convoy. 

It need not be thought, however, that the enemy 
accepted this situation with resignation, or ad- 
mitted that the new system was a complete block 
to the activities of his submarines. Instead he did 
just what the Allied navy officers had hoped. He 
sent his U-boats up against the watchful rings of 
submarines, and not always without success. As 
a rule, however, the ships lost after this system was 
adopted were those commanded by captains who 
rashly broke out of the safe restraints of the 
convoy. 

The fleets convoyed across the Atlantic were ac- 
companied from the American side as far as the 
point in European waters where the submarines 
were apt to be encountered by a cruiser. This was 
to guard them against the chance that the Germans 
might have been able to slip a single armed ship 
out to sea, past the watchful British blockade. 
.What a single ship could do to the merchant ship- 



124 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ping of the world had been shown early in the war 
by the exploits of the German raider, Emden, until 
she was run down and sunk by a British cruiser. 
A fleet of twenty to thirty merchantmen — no un- 
usual number to be gathered — would have been a 
fine prize for a single armed raider had Germany 
been able to get even one to sea. 

The master of each merchantman in a convoy 
was given a book containing full directions for his 
action in every conceivable emergency. Some- 
times a lecture was given by the captain of the 
convoy before putting to sea, in order that all 
might know exactly what was expected of them. 
All the way across the Atlantic the fleet was drilled 
in the tactics that would become necessary when 
the danger zone was reached. As a rule it was a 
heterogeneous fleet, comprising among its units 
trim fleet liners, rusty tramps and lumbering cargo 
boats. There might be ships there capable of 
twenty knots an hour condemned to loaf along in 
the company of others that could only do eight or 
ten when pushed. The temptation was strong upon 
the swift ones to break away under cover of night 
and make a dash for port. Sometimes they yielded 
to the temptation, and usually with fatal results, 
for the Hun was ever watching for a sheep that 
might stray without the fold. 

As the bunch of vessels steamed along across the 
ocean their masters learned the art of steering 
without lights, of zigzagging, of making sudden 
turns in the face of threatened danger. The crews 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 125 

were drilled in what to do if attacked, how to act 
if a torpedo landed in their engine room and there 
were but a few minutes before the sinking of the 
ship. Now and then the wails of the siren on the 
escorting cruiser told of a submarine. It might be 
an actual attack or only a false alarm for the pur- 
pose of more drills. But in any event heed had to 
be taken of it, and all the maneuvers prescribed 
duly performed. 

The responsibility upon the navy officer who was 
the commander of the whole convoy was a heavy 
one. As a rule he sailed by orders from the Navy 
Department, given him sealed and not to be opened 
until he had reached a certain point in the ocean. 
This was to avert any possibility of a leak by which 
the enemy might be enabled to meet the convoy 
with their submarines. Meantime, on the other 
side, the commanders of the destroyer flotillas 
would be getting their orders to meet the oncoming 
convoy at some specified point — off the west coast 
of Ireland if the ships were making for English 
ports, or to the southwest of the English Channel 
if French ports were their destination. To pick 
up a convoy was itself no small feat of seamanship. 
It is true that a fleet of ships, spread out and 
guarded, would cover a space of nearly ten miles 
square. But even at that, if the weather were thick 
and the sea running high, the searching destroyers 
were often hard put to it to find the ships which 
they were to escort into port. Once the destroyers 
had found their charges and taken up position on 



126 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

the flanks and in the van, the cruiser which had 
accompanied the fleet across put on all speed and 
made for her European port, there to coal with all 
rapidity and return with another flotilla of ships 
— this time mostly empty for during the war there 
were few west-bound cargoes. 

Once in the danger zone, with the destroyers 
watchfully shepherding them the fleet would close 
up. From occupying a space of perhaps ten miles 
square it would now be compressed into a square 
mile. If there were twenty-four ships in the fleet 
they would be arranged in rows of four vessels 
each, steaming side by side about half a mile apart, 
and with about five hundred yards between the 
lines. Usually the destroyers steamed along the 
side lines, for from that direction torpedo attack 
might be expected, while one brought up the rear 
partly to watch for submarines and partly to head 
off any adventurous skipper who might be tempted 
to break away from the convoy. The system of 
convoys was practically identical for troop ships 
and for merchantmen. The former, however, had 
additional protection in that they were themselves 
usually armed. That they enjoyed greater im- 
munity from enemy attack during the time our 
army was being ferried to France was partly due 
to the eagerness of the Germans to accomplish the 
starvation of England, which meant the concentra- 
tion of their submarine attack upon food ships, and 
partly to the desire of German diplomats to have 
the United States as little hostile as might be when 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 127 

the time for formulating a peace agreement should 
arrive. 

Most of the work of the men on convoy was dis- 
mally monotonous. Watching day after day for 
submarines that never appeared was stupid work 
and however much all hands may have desired to 
fulfill the immediate duty, which was to get the 
ships in their charge out of the danger zone in 
safety, most of them welcomed an attack as a 
relief to the tedium. But every now and then they 
had excitement enough. 

One of the first engagements in which a destroyer 
participated, and perhaps the most glorious of all, 
was the capture by the Fanning, the destroyer 
Nicholson aiding, of the German submarine U-58. 
It was November 24, 1917, that a convoy of eight 
large ships put forth from Queenstown. It was, as 
usual, accompanied by a group of destroyers that 
were to take it out of the danger zone and bring in 
a fleet then steaming from the west. That was the 
time of the very greatest activity among the sub- 
marines, and this convoy had scarcely passed out 
through the net that barred the entrance to the 
harbor when the cry, " Periscope! ", was raised by 
Coxswain David D. Loomis on the bridge of the 
Fanning. The day was fine. The sea smooth, and 
the fleet had scarcely settled down to its estab- 
lished order when this warning of impending at- 
tack was raised. The periscope that had been 
sighted was almost instantly withdrawn. Prob- 
ably the Hun, while he saw the merchantman 



128 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

WelsJunan directly ahead of him and in an ad- 
mirable position for a fatal shot, also saw the Fan- 
ning and wished to take no chances. 

Then was displayed the advantage of the con- 
stant drill to which the commanders and men of 
the submarines had been subjected since the open- 
ing of the war. The emergency had arrived and 
they knew exactly how to act. The submarine had 
fired no torpedo, so there was no wake to tell of 
its whereabouts. The vanished periscope had left 
no tell-tale mark. To reach the spot at which that 
slender tube had disappeared, the Fanning had to 
make a long, sweeping curve — for these vessels, re- 
sponsive as they are to their helm, cannot spin as 
on a pivot. To hold in mind the spot at which the 
enemy had gone down and to drop his death bombs 
there was the task that confronted the officer of the 
deck, Lieutenant Walter S. Henry. As events 
proved he located the spot with accuracy. The 
depth bomb that went over the stern as the Fan- 
ning sped over the point at which the submarine 
was thought to be lurking exploded with such 
force as to shake up seriously the ship that dropped 
it. Meantime the Nicholson, which had had a 
longer course to follow to reach the scene, had come 
up and was scattering bombs in a way to disquiet 
any submerged Hun. Then followed events which 
puzzled the sub-hunters. Though they were rea- 
sonably sure that their bombs had been dropped at 
the proper point they waited in vain for any sign 
of oil, or other evidence that the prey had been hit. 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 129 

Just as they were about to give it up as a failure 
the placid sea was ruffled, and the stern of the 
U-boat appeared rising slowly above the sea. 
Gradually the conning tower appeared, and then 
the rest of the boat, until its entire hull, seemingly 
undamaged, was on the surface of the water. The 
stranger was in a precarious position for a mo- 
ment for the two destroyers, after a brief hesita- 
tion, began firing upon it, when suddenly the top 
of the conning tower opened. The two arms of the 
German commander appeared extended to heaven 
in token of submission, followed promptly by his 
body, and shouts of " Kamerad " from the still un- 
seen crew. A forward hatch was speedily thrown 
off and some twenty German sailors came up 
through it one by one, like gnomes in a pantomime, 
each one raising high his arms and crying " Kam- 
erad " at the top of his lusty lungs. Just why the 
apparently uninjured boat had surrendered, when 
it was comfortably submerged, and might have 
made its escape, puzzled the Americans, who stood 
to their guns while their officers ranged the two 
destroyers cautiously up beside the captive. As it 
turned out a little less caution and a little more 
severity might have been wise, for two of the Ger- 
mans, wholly indifferent to the fact that they had 
surrendered and were holding their lives at the 
mercy of the victors, slipped from the deck below, 
and opened the sea-cocks. While the parley was 
still in progress the vessel began to settle in the 
water, and presently dropped away from under the 



130 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

feet of the line of Huns on deck. Most of these 
leaped into the water and began swimming toward 
the two American vessels. In all there were thirty- 
nine men in the water and the Yankee blue jackets 
had a lively time in getting them out with ropes 
and life-belts thrown to them. Two or three were 
caught in the deck hamper of the sinking craft and 
went down with it for a time, but in the end all 
were cleared and rescued. There was comment 
among the American sailors on the very different 
way in which the crews of enemy submarines had 
treated the survivors of the merchantmen they had 
been sinking for nearly four years. To pick up a 
struggling English, French or American sailor had 
been a thing unknown. The more common practice 
had been to run down, or to shell the boats in which 
they had taken refuge. But all of these Germans 
were carefully helped from the sea, and when one, 
swimming, proved to be too weak to tie the life-line 
under his arms, an American tar. Coxswain Conner, 
leaped overboard and helped him as though he had 
been a shipmate. This humane action on the part 
of the American sailors was the more creditable 
since they had every reason to be enraged by the 
action of the foe in sinking his ship, after he had 
surrendered and begged for quarter. 

According to the reports of sailors on the vic- 
torious ship the captured officers were sulky, the 
men elated beyond measure, happy to be thus out 
of the war and hopeful that they would be sent to 
America as prisoners. Many said that they in- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 131 

tended to live in that country after the war, as 
they had had enough of imperialistic Germany. 
But they were bitterly disappointed to learn that 
their imprisonment would be in England as the 
American navy had something better to do than 
ferrying Bodies across the wide Atlantic. 

The mystery of the surrender of a seemingly un- 
injured submarine was explained by its captain 
who said that while the explosions of the depth 
bombs had not broken the skin of the ship, nor 
started any leaks, it had raised general havoc with 
her internal mechanism. When the shock of the 
explosion was felt he was greatly relieved to find 
that no leak had been started, and, as was the 
usual practice, he swung her nose down to the div- 
ing position thinking to find bottom and there look 
for any possible internal damage. But when she 
had gone down two hundred feet without finding 
bottom, he saw that the sea was too deep and tried 
to check her descent. She refused to check. The 
officers looked significantly at the depth gages, 
knowing that if the craft sunk much further the 
pressure of the water would crush her sides like 
egg-shells and all would be drowned. One after 
the other all devices for stopping her descent and 
still keeping her safely below the surface and pro- 
tected from the American guns was tried. All 
failed. There was but one recourse — to blow out 
the water ballast, and let her rise and surrender. 
That in itself was rather a counsel of desperation, 
for there is always a period between the appear- 



132 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ance of the top of a conning tower and the moment 
at which the commander can emerge and make his 
surrender known. That time is ample for a single 
well-directed shot from a watchful gunner to send 
the U-boat back again to the depths which she is 
trying to escape. And the record of treachery 
made by the German submarine commanders dur- 
ing the war was not such as to lead an Allied com- 
mander to wait very long to learn whether a sub 
was coming up to surrender or not. It might be 
coming up to launch another torpedo and it was 
his business to strike first. 

In the case of the U-58 luck was with the Ger- 
mans, and all survived their defeat except one man 
who became so exhausted in the water that he died 
on the deck of the Fanning. All were taken ashore 
and turned over to the British. The exploit of the 
American destroyers won for them dispatches of 
congratulation from both Admiral Bayly and Ad- 
miral Sims. There was some amusement in the 
wardrooms over the characteristic way in which 
the latter ended his note. "Go out and do it 
again ! " said the American Admiral, and every man 
in the destroyer flotilla wanted to give literal obedi- 
ence to the injunction. 

But no naval service is an uninterrupted record 
of triumph. In October of 1917 the destroyer 
Cassin, Commander Walter H. Vernou, narrowly 
escaped destruction by a torpedo which blew off 
thirty-five feet of the stern. The destroyer was not 
at the time on convoy work but was patrolling the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 133 

sea off the west coast of Ireland when a wireless 
notified her of the presence of a submarine some 
miles away. Under forced draught with every eye 
on the ship eagerly scanning the waste of waters 
she sped for the scene. Then came evidence of the 
great advantage which invisibility gives to the 
U-boat. For while the Cassin could make out no 
sign of the enemy it was suddenly made evident 
that the Boche could see her. I will let the ofl&cial 
report tell the story: 

" At about 1 : 57 p.m. the commanding officer sighted a 
torpedo apparently shortly after it had been fired, running 
near the surface and in a direction that was estimated would 
make a hit either in the engine or fire room. When first 
seen the torpedo was between 300 and 400 yards from the 
ship, and the wake could be followed on the other side for 
about 400 yards. The torpedo was running at high speed, 
at least 35 knots. The Cassin was maneuvering to dodge 
the torpedo, double emergency full speed ahead having been 
signaled from the engine room and the rudder put hard left 
as Kacn as the torpedo was sighted. It looked for the mo- 
ment aa though the torpedo would pass astern. When 
about 15 or 20 feet away the torpedo porpoised, completely 
leaving the water and sheering to the left. Before again 
taking the water the torpedo hit the ship well aft on the 
port side about frame 163 and above the water line. Al- 
most immediately after the explosion of the torpedo the 
depth charges, located on the stern and ready for firing, 
exploded. There were two distinct explosions in quick 
succession after the torpedo hit. 

" But one life was lost. Osmond K. Ingram, gunner's 
mate first claes, was cleaning the muzzle of No. 4 gun, tar- 



134 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

get practice being just over when the attack occurred. 
With rare presence of mind, realizing that the torpedo was 
about to strike the part of the ship where the depth charges 
were stored and that the setting off of these explosives might 
sink the ship, Ingram, immediately seeing the danger, ran 
aft to strip these charges and throw them overboard. He 
wa£ blown to pieces when the torpedo struck. Thus Ingram 
sacrificed his life in performing a duty which he believed 
would save his ship and the lives of the officers and men 
on board. 

" Nine members of the crew received minor injuries. 

" After the ship was hit, the crew was kept at general 
quarters. 

" The executive officer and engineer officer inspected the 
parts of the ship that were damaged, and those adjacent 
to the damage. It was found that the engine and fire 
roonis and after magazine were intact and that the engines 
could be worked; but that the ship could not be steered, 
the rudder having been blown off and the stern blown to 
starboard. The ship continued to turn to starboard in a 
circle. In an effort to put the ship on a course by the 
use of the engines, something carried away which put the 
starboard engine out of commission. The port engine was 
kept going at slow speed. The ship, being absolutely un- 
manageaJjle, sometimes turned in a circle and at times held 
an approximate course for several minutes. 

" Immediately after the ship was torpedoed the radio 
was out of commission. The radio officer and radio elec- 
trician chief managed to improvise a temporary auxiliary 
antenna. The generators were out of commission for a 
short time aftei' the explosion, the ship being in darkness 
below. 

" When this vessel was torpedoed, there was another 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 135 

United States destroyer, name unknown, within signal 
distance. She had acknowledged our caJl by searchlight be- 
fore we were torpedoed. After being torpedoed, an at- 
tempt was made to signal her by searchlight, flag, and 
whistle, and the distress signal was hoisted. Apparently 
through a misunderstanding she steamed away and was 
lost sight of. 

" At about 2 : 30 p.m., when we were in approximately 
the same position as when torpedoed, a submarine conning 
tower was sighted on port beam, distant about 1,500 yaj-ds, 
ship still circling under port engine. Opened fire with No. 
2 gun, firing four rounds. Submarine submerged and was 
not seen again. Two shots struck very close to submarine." 

After a savage struggle with the sea, the shat- 
tered Cassin was finally towed into port. That she 
should have been saved was little short of mar- 
velous and that but one man was lost — and that 
one because he deliberately sacrificed his life to 
save his fellows — is even more remarkable. Fully 
850 pounds of TNT was exploded on or near the 
ship's fantail, including the torpedo itself and the 
two depth mines that were stowed there. As a 
result, thirty-five feet of the stern was blown ofif, 
carrying with it all the clothing of the crew. One 
gun was blown overboard. Although there were 
more than twenty men in the wrecked living com- 
partments all escaped with only minor injuries. 
One fireman was asleep in his bunk, on the side 
where the torpedo struck and only a few feet for- 
ward of the point of impact. Steel plates were torn 
apart, and rivets sheered off directly alongside his 



136 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

body. Unliurt, but dazed, he climbed to his feet, 
made his way through three compartments to the 
deck, climbed the ladder in a state of unconscious- 
ness, and was well on his way to his station before 
he came to himself and grasped the fact of the ex- 
plosion. It was a clear case of the subconscious 
mind doing the routine acts which discipline had 
made a real part of its being. The official report 
continues : 

" Others caught below in the crew space probably did 
their duty of dogging the water-tight doors from a like 
cause and in a similar state. The two doors leading into 
the after compartment, and the door between the C. P. O.'s 
(chief petty officers') quarters and the engine-room P. O.'s 
(petty officer's) quarters were all found firmly and per- 
fectly dogged. Yet all the men escaping up the ladder 
from this deck declared that from the first instant of the 
explosion they had been absolutely blinded. Seven men 
were in the after space, and about the same number in 
each of the two others. 

" Of the two after doors, that to port threatened to carry 
away soon after the seas began to pound in. The main 
mass of wreckage which dropped off did so upward of an 
hour after the explosions. It was at this time that the 
bulkhead began to buckle and the port door and dogging 
weaken. It was shored with mattresses under the personal 
direction of the executive. Up to this time and until the 
seas began to crumple the bulkhead completely, there was 
only a few inchee of water in the two P. 0. compartments ; 
and even when the Cassin reached Queenstown, hardly more 
than three feet. None of the compartments directly under 
these three on the deck below — handling room, magazine 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 137 

and oil tanks — were injured at all. The tanks were far- 
thest aft, and were pumped out after docking. 

" One piece of metal entered the wash room and before 
coming to rest completely circled it without touching a man 
who was standing in the center of the compartment. An- 
other stray piece tore a 6-inch hole in one of the stacks. 

" The destroyer within signal distance at the time of the 
attack was the U. S. S. Porter. It is believed that she saw 
the explosion, at least of the two depth charges, and think- 
ing that the Cassin was attacking a submarine, started off 
scouting before a signal could be sent and after the radio 
was out of commission." 

I have said that the only man killed on board the 
Cassin deliberately sacrificed his life in the dis- 
charge of his duty and that his fellows might be 
saved. Let the Secretary of the Navy tell the story, 
as he did in an address at Yale University : 

*' The deed of Osmond K. Ingram ranks with those that 
give splendor to our humanity. He was a gunner's mate 
in the intrepid Cassin, when the Captain searching for 
submarines, espied one he started full speed ahead toward 
the enemy. Suddenly he sighted a torpedo about 400 yards 
away, running at high speed, and headed to strike his ves- 
sel amidships. Eealizing the situation, the cool captain 
rang for emergency speed on both engines. In that moment 
an enlisted man of the navy rose to the heroic demand of 
the peril. Seeing the torpedo coming toward the stern of 
the ship where his gun was located, Ingram, with rare pres- 
ence of mind, realized the additional danger if the missile 
struck where certain high explosives were stored. He 
speedily ran aft and threw the depth charges into the sea. 



138 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

before the torpedo struck. The ship was hit, but the 
Cassin and his comrades were saved. Ingram lost his own 
life. He was the only man who did not answer to the next 
roll-call on the ship. But he answered to the roll-call of 
the immortals, and soon a destroyer bearing his name will 
sail the seas.'* 

In fact, at the first opportunity, the Secretary 
conferred the name of the Cassin-s hero upon a new 
destroyer. 

The first serious disaster came to the destroyer 
fleet in the loss of the Jacob Jones, December 6, 
1917, after our ships had been patrolling the 
danger zone for more than seven months. The ship 
which was under the command of Lieutenant David 
W. Bagley, whose brother had been the first Ameri- 
can naval officer killed in the war with Spain, was 
returning to Queenstown from having escorted a 
convoy out of the infested area. Steaming along, 
not unsuspectingly, but with every eye alert for the 
enemy, she suddenly received a fatal stroke. Long 
after it was learned that the redoubtable Captain 
Rose of the U-53, the same who brought his ship 
to Newport before the war, had launched the tor- 
pedo from a distance of more than two miles. At 
that distance his periscope could, of course, not be 
seen. At the same time it was by the merest chance 
that his shot proved effective, for a torpedo cannot 
be counted on for much more than a mile. But this 
time an accurate aim, and a fair measure of luck, 
helped the Germans. The story is best told in Com- 
mander Bagley's report : 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 139 

"At 4: 21 P.M. on December 6, 1917, in latitude 49-23 
north, longitude 6-13 west, clear weather, smooth sea speed 
13 knots zigzagging, the U. S. S. Jacob Jones was struck on 
the starboard side by a torpedo from an enemy submarine. 
The ship was one of six of an escorting group which were 
returning independently from off Brest to Queenstown. 
All other ships of the group were out of sight ahead. 

" I was in the chart house and heard some one call out 
* Torpedo.' I jumped at once to the bridge, and on the 
way up saw the torpedo about 800 yards from the ship 
approaching from about one point abaft the starboard beam 
headed for a point about amidships, making a perfectly 
straight surface run (alternately broaching and submerging 
to apparently four or five feet), at an estimated speed of 
at least 40 knots. No periscope was sighted. When I 
reached the bridge I found that the officer of the deck had 
already put the rudder hard left and rung up emergency 
speed on the engine-room telegraph. The ship had already 
begun to swing to the left. I personally rang up emergency 
speed again and then turned to watch the torpedo. The 
executive officer. Lieutenant Norman Scott, left the chart 
house just ahead of me, saw the torpedo immediately on 
getting outside the door, and estimates that the torpedo 
when he sighted it was 1,000 yards away, approaching from 
one point, or slightly less, abaft the beam and making ex- 
ceedingly high speed. 

" After seeing the torpedo and realizing the straight run, 
line of approach, and high speed it was making, I was con- 
vinced that it was impossible to maneuver to avoid it. 
Lieutenant (junior grade) S. F. Kalk was officer of the 
deck at the time, and I consider that he took correct and 
especially prompt measures in maneuvering to avoid the 
torpedo. Lieutenant Kalk was a very able officer, calm and 



140 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

collected in emergency. He had been attached to the ship 
for about two months and had shown especial aptitude. His 
action in this emergency entirely justified my confidence in 
him. I deeply regret to state that he was lost as a result of 
the torpedoing of the ship, dying of exposure on one of the 
rafts. 

" The torpedo broached and jumped clear of the water 
at a short distance from the ship, submerged about 50 or 60 
feet from the ship, and struck aproximately three feet be- 
low the water line in the fuel-oil tank between the auxiliary 
room and the after crew space. The ship settled aft im- 
mediately after being torpedoed to a point at which the 
deck just forward of the after deck house was awash, and 
then more gradually until the deck abreast the engine-room 
hatch was awash. A man on watch in the engine-room, 
D. R. Carter, oiler, attempted to close the water-tight door 
between the auxiliary room and the engine room, but was 
unable to do so against the pressure of water from the 
auxiliary room. 

" The deck over the forward part of the after crew space 
and over the fuel-oil tank just forward of it was blown clear 
for a space athwartships of about 20 feet from starboard to 
port, and the auxiliary room wrecked. The starboard after 
torpedo tube was blown into the air. No fuel oil ignited 
and, apparently, no ammunition exploded. The depth 
charges in the chutes aft were set on ready and exploded 
after the stern sank. It was impossible to get to them to set 
them on safe as they were under water. Immediately the 
ship was torpedoed, Lieutenant J. K. Eichards, the gunnery 
officer, rushed aft to attempt to set the charges on ' safe,' but 
was unable to get further aft than the after deck house. 

" As soon as the torpedo struck I attempted to send out 
an ' S. 0. S.' message by radio, but the mainmast was car- 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 141 

ried away, antennae falling, and all electric power had 
failed. I then tried to have the gun-sight lighting batteries 
connected up in an effort to send out a low-power message 
with them, but it was at once evident that this would not be 
practicable before the ship sank. There was no other ves- 
sel in sight, and it was therefore impossible to get through 
a distress signal of any kind. 

" Immediately after the ship was torpedoed every effort 
was made to get rafts and boats launched. Also the circular 
life belts from the bridge and several splinter mats from the 
outside of the bridge were cut adrift and afterwards proved 
very useful in holding men up until they could be got to the 
rafts. Weighted confidential publications were thrown over 
the side. There was no time to destroy other confidential 
matter, but it went down with the ship. 

"The ship sank about 4:29 p.m. (about eight minutes 
after being torpedoed). As I saw her settling rapidly, I 
ran along the deck and ordered everybody I saw to jump 
overboard. At this time most of those not killed by the 
explosion were clear of the ship and were on rafts or wreck- 
age. Some, however, were swimming and appeared to be 
about a ship's length astern of the ship, at some distance 
from the rafts, probably having jumped overboard very soon 
after the ship was sunk. 

" Before the ship sank two shots were fired from a No. 4 
gun with the hope of attracting attention of some nearby 
ship. As the ship began sinking I jumped overboard. 
The ship sank stern first, and twisted slowly through nearly 
180 degrees as she swung upright. Before the ship reached 
the vertical position the depth charges exploded, and I 
believe them to have caused the death of a number of men. 
They also partially paralyzed, dazed or stunned a num- 
ber of others, including Lieutenant Kalk and myself and 



142 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

several men, some of whom are still disabled but re- 
covering. 

" Immediate efforts were made to get all the survivors 
on the raft and then get rafts and boats together. Three 
rafts were launched before the ship sank, and one floated 
off when she sank. The motor dory, hull undamaged but 
engine out of commission, also floated off, and the punt 
and wherry also floated clear. The punt was wrecked be- 
yond usefulness and the wherry was damaged and leaking 
badly, but was of considerable use in getting men to the 
rafts. The whaleboat was launched but capsized soon 
afterwards, having been damaged by the explosion of the 
depth charges. The motor sailer did not float clear, but 
went down with the ship. 

" About 15 or 20 minutes after the ship sank the sub- 
marine appeared on the surface about two or three miles 
to the westward of the rafts, and gradually approached 
until about 800 to 1,000 yards from the ship, where it 
stopped and was seen to pick up one unidentified man from 
the water. The submarine then submerged and was not 
seen again. 

" I was picked up by the motor dory and at once began to 
make arrangements to try to reach the Seillys in that boat 
in order to get assistance to those on the rafts. All the 
survivors then in sight were collected and I gave orders to 
Lieutenant Eichards to keep them together. 

" Lieutenant Scott, the navigating officer, had fixed the 
ship's position a few minutes before the explosion and 
both he and I knew accurately the course to be steered. 
I kept Lieutenant Scott to assist me and four men who were 
in good condition in the boat to man the oars, the engine 
being out of commission. With the exception of some 
emergency rations and half a bucket of water, all pro- 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 143 

visions, including medical kits, were taken from the dory 
and left on the rafts. There was no apparatus of any kind 
which could be used for night signaling." 

Oddly enough the rafts, which were left helpless, 
were picked up by patrol vessels before the dory 
which went off in search of aid had itself found 
succor. All who had taken refuge on boats or rafts 
were in the end rescued, save Lieutenant Kalk, 
who, though in a greatly weakened condition, swam 
from one raft to another to equalize the loads and 
died of exhaustion. " He was game to the last," 
was the epitaph his men formulated for him, and 
the Navy Department commemorated his heroism 
by giving his name to a new destroyer. 

The loss of the Jacob Jones was the most serious 
disaster suffered by the navy during the war. 
Sixty-four men and two officers were lost with the 
ship. The record of the struggle for life after the 
ship had disappeared is full of stories of heroism 
and self-sacrifice. But such records were limited 
only by the opportunities offered for their making. 
The brief endurance of the enemy after the United 
States came in left little time for the men of our 
fighting ships to show the stuff that was in them. 
In fact, only three vessels of that class were lost — 
the Jacob Jones, the Alcedo, a converted yacht, and 
the cruiser San Diego, which was sunk off Fire 
Island on the New York coast, presumably by 
striking a floating mine. Six lives were lost in 
the last disaster which was at first thought to be 



144 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

due to torpedo attack. A careful search of the 
waters adjacent, however, made shortly after, dis- 
covered a number of floating mines which must 
have been laid by a wandering submarine which 
thereafter returned to her base. It was doubtless 
from such a mine that the San Diego received her 
death wound. 



CHAPTER V 

The ferry to France. — Germany amazed. — The first transport 
fleet. — The base at St. Nazaire. — Loss of the Antilles. — The 
converted yacht Alcedo. — The Tuscania and the President 
Lincoln. — The Covington and Mt. Vernon. — Disappearance of 
the Cyclops. 

Shortly after the armistice the Secretary of the 
Navy, Josephus Daniels, in beginning an address 
on the work of the navy, said : 

" When the war broke out we lacked ships to carry our 
men and supplies across the water. Britain came to our 
aid and transported to France American soldiers and sup- 
plies for them, and the seas were kept open. Never in the 
history of the world were so many men, together with their 
complete equipment, carried across 3,000 miles of water 
with as few losses. Though we sent to France 2,000,000 in 
one and a half years not a single man lost his life on an 
American troopship, and only a few went to their death 
as the result of submarine attacks on other transports. 

" The Germans, too, were somewhat surprised at our job 
of crossing. A few weeks before the armistice was signed 
some German prisoners were brought to a French camp, 
and Allied officers went to question them. Among them 
was a young German who had spent the early part of his 
life in the United States, and he expressed surprise at see- 
ing so many Americans already in France. He said to the 
Allied officers : ' When I was in Germany on my last fur- 
lough they told me that there were only a handful of 

145 



146 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

Americans in France, but it looks to me as though the whole 
face of the earth was covered with Yankees.' This young 
German wore the Iron Cross — which today can be bought 
in Germany at about a cent a bushel. He was much in- 
terested in the Victoria crosses, and the Croix de Guerre 
worn by the officers about him. He remarked to the officers : 
' I can understand the French crosses and the British cross, 
but what puzzles me is, How did the Yankees get across ? ' '* 

Although Secretary Daniels very properly gave 
credit to the British for supplying ships to aid in 
carrying our more than 2,000,000 soldiers across 
seas it is fair to note that of these 950,000 were 
carried in American bottoms. This may well be 
looked upon as the greatest transportation job in 
history. And in its performance not a single 
American troopship was lost on her way to foreign 
ports. Ships were lost it is true, but they were 
either British ships carrying American troops, as 
in the case of the Tuscania, or American ships re- 
turning after discharging their troops, as in that of 
the Antilles. During the period of greatest activ- 
ity, July and August, 1918, 3,444,012 tons of ship- 
ping were escorted to and from French ports by 
United States vessels. Of this vast volume of traf- 
fic, passing through the most dangerous part of the 
submarine zone, only 0.009 per cent of the incom- 
ing, and 0.013 per cent of the outgoing, vessels were 
lost through enemy action. During the same 
months 259,604 American soldiers were landed in 
France without the loss of one man by enemy 
attack. 




i i 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 147 

The first considerable military expedition to 
France set sail from New York, June 14, 1917. 
Every possible endeavor had been made to make 
the departure of the ships a deep secret, and a 
dense fog which overhung the bay on the day of 
sailing was hailed by the officers in command as 
an aid to this purpose. Nevertheless the efficiency 
of the German secret service was such that it was 
learned later that the sailing of the fleet was known 
to the German Admiralty almost before it was 
fairly out of American waters. The flotilla was 
divided into four groups, sailing six hours apart 
and constituted as follows : 

GROUP I 

Transport Escort Type 

Saratoga Seattle Armored Cruiser 

Havana De Kalb Auxiliary Cruiser 

Tenadores Corsair Converted Yacht 

Pastores Wilkes Destroyer 

Terry Destroyer 

Roe Destroyer 

GROUP II 

Transport Escort Type 

Momus Birmingham Scout Cruiser 

Antilles Aphrodite Converted Yacht 

Lenape Fanning Destroyer 

Burrows Destroyer 

Lamson Destroyer 

GROUP III 

Transport Escort Type 

Mallory Charleston Cruiser 

Finland Cyclops Converted Yacht 

San Jacinto Allen Destroyer 

McCall Destroyer 

Preston Destroyer 



U8 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

GROUP IV 

Transport Escort Type 

Montanan St. Louis Cruiser 

Dakotan Hancock Cruiser Transport 

El Occidente Shaio Destroyer 

D. N. Luckenhach Ammen Destroyer 

Flusser Destroyer 

The fleet of fourteen transports was thus under 
escort of twenty-one vessels of war, all under com- 
mand of Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves in the flag- 
ship Seattle. Most of the transports were con- 
verted American coastwise liners, the interiors of 
which had been ripped out, and tiers of bunks in- 
stalled for the accommodation of the " doughboys," 
whom they were to carry to the field of battle. 
Some had been famous pleasure ships, carrying 
people of wealth and leisure into the balmy tropic 
airs of the Caribbean in the winter season. A very 
different errand was assigned them now, as in their 
war gray or glaringly camouflaged exteriors, with 
every sign of luxury sternly erased from their hulls 
and cabins they put out, loaded heavy with young 
American manhood, to brave the terrors of a sub- 
marine-infested sea. 

The fleet did not sail in majesty, amid a spec- 
tacular farewell from crowded docks, with flags 
waving and salutes booming. That sort of 
pageantry of war was abandoned in this, colossal 
conflict. Instead the ships sneaked off to sea, 
through the fog, as if fairly ashamed of their 
errand. Not all put off from New York moorings, 
for some of the troops had been assembled at other 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 149 

ports, and the transports bearing them met the 
New York units out at sea at a spot known only 
to their commanders. It was throughout the war 
one of the disappointments which befell " dough- 
boy " and " gob/' one of the chief sorrows that had 
to be borne by the loving ones who gave them up, 
that there could be no glorious departures, no 
leave-takings, or escorting trips down the bay. The 
vigilance of the submarines compelled the utmost 
secrecy. 

All the way over rigid discipline was maintained 
on every ship, and precautionary drills in all that 
should be done in the event of attack or disaster 
were held. It was well known that submarines 
were operating in the area to be crossed, and target 
practice, drill in the method of " abandoning ship," 
and boat drills were held. The water-tight doors 
were kept closed, and after the submarine zone was 
reached, the ships ran with all lights out. 

June 22nd the fleet was subjected to a torpedo 
attack. Concerning this a controversy arose 
within the Navy Department, and, in the press 
almost as savage at the attack itself, and much 
noisier than the subject warranted. That a tor- 
pedo was thought to have been seen by lookouts on 
both the de Kalh and the Havana seems certain, and 
also that the lookouts on the flagship, Seattle, saw 
the wake of a submarine. The gunners on both the 
former ships cut loose, and fired at the objects 
sighted but without apparent effect. It is fair to 
remember that this was the first trip into hostile 



150 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

waters of the sailors on either of these ships, and 
that the gambols of a porpoise are sometimes ex- 
ceedingly suggestive of the approach of a torpedo. 
Four days later the second group of ships sighted 
a submarine about one hundred miles off the coast 
of France and the destroyer, Cummings, gave chase 
and dropped bombs over the spot where she had 
been seen. Now it is entirely probable that these 
were actually lurking U-boats, for the enemy was 
aware of the approach of the United States fleet 
and would naturally plan to attack it. But, un- 
fortunately, when the reports reached the Navy 
Department at Washington a not unnatural desire 
to give the utmost dramatic effect to the story of 
the first menace to our boys on their way to France, 
led to the writing and publication of an elaborate 
dispatch purporting to give the stories of eye-wit- 
nesses to a fierce battle between the fleet and the 
submarines. For a time the story held the atten- 
tion of newspaper readers all over the United 
States. Then authoritative denials of its accuracy 
began to come in, and finally it was even asserted 
that the entire story had been made out of whole 
cloth. The final report of Admiral Gleaves, made 
public months after, authenticated the report of 
the submarine attack, but rather discredited the 
dramatic story of the battle. 

Before beginning the transportation of our 
forces to France it was necessary to select a port 
and naval base for their reception. Havre, Calais 
and Boulogne were crowded with British shipping, 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 151 

Brest was the principal French naval base. It was 
therefore determined to take a little used port, with 
a large harbor, and to develop it to the proportions 
that would be needed for the accommodation of the 
immense flood of American fighters. Accordingly 
St. Nazaire, a sleepy little fishing town at the 
mouth of the Loire, was chosen. It was off the 
lines of transatlantic trade and had seldom seen 
more than one or two tramp steamers at anchor 
in its harbor. What then must have been the 
amazement of its people to wake up one morning 
and in June find their harbor filled with great gray 
troopships and cruisers, while out beyond the bar 
could be seen more still, and farther out the smoke 
of yet more on their way to the new American base. 

For the vanguard of the American army in 
France had arrived at midnight on June 26th. A 
young American college boy, serving in the naval 
volunteers, and that night acting as orderly on the 
bridge of the De Kalh, first ship to make port, told 
the writer of his experience on that first sight of 
France. 

" It was black as well could be when we steamed 
into the harbor guided by the lights and cast 
anchor. At that time I could not make out any 
shore line, but as the gray dawn gradually spread 
over the horizon I could see a long line of hills on 
either side. Then the tall white tower of the light 
could be made out, and the light itself went out as 
the day broke. Gradually I could see ahead of us 
a little town of white cement or stone houses, with 



152 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

red tiled roofs, seemingly built along a single street 
following the line of the shore. The hills rose 
back of it, and here and there the red roof of a 
chateau peeped through the green foliage. The sea, 
with the rising of the sun, grew beautifully blue and 
I could see that a sort of boulevard ran along the 
front of the town close to the water. Something 
was moving on it. Thrilled by my first sight of 
France, and thinking that I was about to see some 
of the apparatus of the war we had come to join, I 
begged tlie officer's glasses and focussed them on 
the moving object. It was nothing but a common 
old Ford flivver ! " 

That Ford, however disappointing to the young 
"gob," fresh from Detroit, wiiere they made them 
by the hundreds of thousands, was the symbol of 
the American conquest of St. Nazaire. For our 
army and navy engineers seized on that quiet 
French fishing village and made it something which 
the old inhabitants could not recognize. Enormous 
concrete breakwaters and docks were built. Ware- 
houses to accommodate food and clothing for a city 
of half a million people were established. Rail- 
roads were built into the interior, and railroad sid- 
ings covered square miles of what had been smiling 
farm land. Millions upon tens of millions of 
dollars were spent in the construction work, while 
the money spent by our soldiers, who began coming 
in by the tens of thousands, soon made the French 
shopkeepers and peasants think that they had come 
upon an El Dorado. 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 153 

News of the arrival of " Les Americaines " spread 
rapidly through the little town — where indeed they 
had been expected for some days despite the en- 
deavors of the censorship — and the wharves and 
waterfront streets were quickly filled with excited 
and enthusiastic French people. Where American 
flags had been found in the hamlet seemed inex- 
plicable, but they appeared by the scores and the 
people who had no flags waved red, white and blue 
streamers. Early as was the hour the waterfront 
was crowded, and cries of, " Vive les fitats-Unis " 
and " Vive la France," rose on every side. Steam 
whistles were blowing from the craft in the harbor, 
and the bands on the men-of-war blew themselves 
hoarse with the Marseillaise and the Star-Spangled 
Banner, in alternation. There were formal delega- 
tions from the French army and navy to greet the 
new allies, and the Mayor in all the glory of eve- 
ning dress and a tri-colored sash was present with 
an address of welcome which few of the doughboys 
could understand. But the true greeting, and the 
one that all could comprehend came from the 
people of the little town who streamed down the 
narrow streets and crowded the waterfront as the 
boats from the ships began landing their cargoes 
of men clad in khaki and blue. 

Then began a great era for St. Nazaire. It was 
far from the front where the guns were pounding, 
and men dying, and although, like all other French 
towns, it had given almost all its able-bodied men 
to the army it knew the horrors of war only by re- 



154 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

port. There came now to its people a chance to reap 
the profits of war. The thousands of sailors, and 
the tens of thousands of soldiers suddenly landed 
in its streets wanted dainties to eat, wines and beer 
to drink, postcards and souvenirs of every sort. 
The town speedily became a sort of magnified street 
fair with every imaginable useless article exposed 
for sale in the little shops that up to that time had 
offered only the simple necessaries demanded in a 
fishing village. After the first enthusiastic greet- 
ing to the Americans as the saviors of France from 
the Boche were over the inhabitants of St. Nazaire 
settled down to the more serious business of ex- 
tracting every obtainable coin from the pockets of 
" gobs " and " doughboys " alike. It was no difld- 
cult job. The men of the sea and the tented field are 
always loose with their money, and the novelty of 
French food and drink appealed to them, while the 
stocks of French souvenirs, hurriedly increased by 
orders from Paris, could hardly be kept up suffi- 
ciently to meet the demand. 

But the financial profit so abundantly reaped by 
the inhabitants was as nothing to the enormous ad- 
vantages the town gained from the American opera- 
tion. To begin with it was cleaned up. The pic- 
turesqueness of a French village is apt to blind the 
purely artistic observer to its dirt. The Americans 
put in sewerage and paved the streets, preached 
public cleanliness and enforced it, for the town was 
policed by American soldiers and marines. The 
sale of spirituous liquors to members of the Ameri- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 155 

can armed forces was strictly prohibited, although 
they were permitted to take the wines and beer of 
the neighborhood, and found great delight in the 
open-air cafes which are a feature of French life. 
The French girls and the Yankee blue jackets soon 
became great companions, and an international 
language that would make a professor of either 
French or English wince soon was developed and 
met all the needs of friendly intercourse. They 
were great days for St. Nazaire and those who 
witnessed them often wonder how the little town 
appears now that it has returned to its original 
population with nothing to recall the flush times 
of the war except the empty warehouses, the idle 
docks and the deserted railroad sidings. 

For eighteen months, however, it was all life and 
bustle, and for all that time the great gray, or 
camouflaged, transports of the American army 
shadowed and shepherded by the cruisers and de- 
stroyers of the navy pressed on through wave and 
gale and spindrift, watchful of the lurking sub- 
marines but almost miraculously preserved, to land 
their human cargoes at the point where the rail- 
roads to where the guns were roaring came down to 
the sea. In all, 911,017 men were carried by 
United States navy transports, and 41,544 by other 
ships under the Stars and Stripes. The British 
ships carried 1,006,987, and ships leased to and 
operated by the British 68,246. Other ships, 
Italian, French, etc., carried 52,066. Of this mag- 
nificent total not one American troopship was lost 



156 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

on her way to France, though three, the Antilles, 
President Lincoln and the Mount Vernon, were 
destroyed on their way home. Many American 
lives were unhappily lost by the sinking of the 
Tuscania, Moldavia and Otranto, all British 
vessels. The Leviathan, the converted and re- 
named German liner, Vaterland, ferried across 
nearly one hundred thousand men, in ten round 
trips. So great was her speed — which she in- 
creased by a knot an hour after overhauling by 
American mechanics — that she sailed without 
escort and was never attacked by a U-boat. Was it 
sentiment that led the Germans thus to spare the 
most magnificent product of their own ship- 
yards? 

The first loss of an American transport came on 
October 17, 1917, when the Antilles was sunk by a 
torpedo about three hundred miles west of Quibe- 
ron Bay. Prior to her service as a transport the 
vessel had been one of a line of passenger ships 
plying between New York and New Orleans. At 
the time of the disaster she was returning to the 
United States from France with 237 persons 
aboard, including her crew. She sunk in four 
minutes from the time the torpedo struck, and 67 
lives were lost — which gives a fair indication of the 
frightful loss of life which would have resulted 
had she been struck while in service and with 
nearly four thousand men aboard. She carried a 
crew of navy gunners, the senior officer of which, 
Commander Daniel T. Ghent, in his official report 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 157 

gave the following account of the sinking of the 
vessel : 



" Just after daylight a torpedo was sighted heading for 
us about two points pbaft the port beam on a course of 45° 
with the keel. The torpedo was seen by the second officer 
on the bridge, the quartermaster and signalman on watch; 
by the first officer and first assistant engineer from the 
port side of the promenade deck, and by one of the gun 
crews on watch aft. They estimated the distance from 
400 feet to as many yards. Immediately on sighting the 
torpedo the helm was put ' hard over ' in an attempt to 
dodge it, but before the ship began to swing the torpedo 
struck us near the after engine-room bulkhead on the port 
side. The explosion was terrific; the ship shivered from 
stem to stern, listing immediately to port. One of the 
lookouts in the main top, though protected by a canvas 
screen about 5 feet high, was thrown clear of this screen 
and killed on striking the hatch. This case is cited as 
indicating the power of the ' whip ' caused by the ex- 
plosion. Guns were manned instantly in the hope of get- 
ting a shot at the enemy, but no submarine was seen. 

" The explosion wrecked everything in the engine room, 
including the ice machine and dynamo, and almost instantly 
flooded the engine room, fireroom, and No. 3 hold, which is 
just abaft the engine-room bulkhead. The engine room 
was filled with ammonia fumes and with the high-pressure 
gases from the torpedo and it is believed that every one 
on duty in the engine room was either instantly killed or 
disabled except one oiler. This man happened to be on the 
upper gratings at the time. He tried to escape through the 
engine-room door, which is near the level of the upper grat- 
ings, but found the door jammed, and the knob on his side 



158 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

blown off. Unable to force the door, and finding he was 
being overcome by the gases and ammonia fumes, he man- 
aged to escape through the engine-room skylight just as the 
ship was going under. Within a few seconds after the 
explosion the water was over the crossheads of the main 
engines, which were still turning over slowly. Of the 21 
men on duty in the engine room and firerooms only 3 
managed to escape. Besides the oiler 3 firemen managed 
to escape through a fireroom ventilator. The fact that the 
engines could not be maneuvered and the headway of the 
ship checked added to the difficulty of abandoning ship. 

"Just as the torpedo struck us I was on the way to the 
pilot house from the scene of fire. Before I could reach 
the bridge the officer of the deck had sounded the submarine 
alarm, and I immediately sounded the signal for ' Abandon 
ship.' The officer on watch, quartermaster, and signalman 
went to their boats. Eadio Electrician Watson, being re- 
lieved by Eadio Electrician Ausburne in the radio room, 
reported on the bridge for instructions. I sent an order to 
get out an S. 0. S. signal. Eadio Electrician Watson, who 
was lost, remained with me on the bridge until the gun 
crews forward were ordered to save themselves. He was 
wearing a life jacket and was on his way to liis boat when 
I last saw him. 

" Before leaving port all boats had been rigged out ex- 
cept the two after boats, which, owing to their low davits, 
could not with safety be rigged out except in favorable 
weather. All other boats had been lowered to the level of 
the promenade deck. All hands had been carefully in- 
structed and carefully drilled in the details of abandoning 
ship. The best seamen in the ship's crew had been de- 
tailed and stationed by the falls; men had been stationed 
by the gripes of each boat, and all boats had been equipped 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 159 

with sea painters; two axes had been placed in each boat, 
one forward and one aft for the purpose of cutting the falls 
or sea painters in case they should get jammed and men 
had been detailed to cast them off. That only 4 boats out of 
10 succeeded in getting clear of the ship was due to several 
causes — the short time the ship remained afloat after being 
torpedoed; the headway left on the ship, due to the fact 
that the engine-room personnel was put out of action by 
the explosion; the rough sea at the time; the fact that the 
ship listed heavily ; and that one boat was destroyed by the 
explosion. 

" When there was no one left in sight on the decks I 
went aft on the saloon deck, where several men were 
struggling in the water in the vicinity of No. 5 boat and 
making no attempt to swim away from the side of the 
ship. I thought perhaps these men could be induced to get 
clear of the ship, as it was feared the suction would carry 
them down. By the time that point was reached, however, 
the ship, being at an angle with the horizontal of about 
45 degrees, started to upend and go down listing heavily 
to port. This motion threw me across the deck where I 
was washed overboard. The ship went down vertically. 
The suction effect was hardly noticeable. 

" The behavior of the naval personnel throughout was 
equal to the best tradition of the service. The two forward 
gun crews in charge of Lieutenant Tisdale remained at their 
gun stations while the ship went down and made no move 
to leave their stations until ordered to save themselves. 
Eadio Electrician Ausburne went down with the shij) while 
at his station in the radio room. Wlien the ship was struck 
Ausburne and McMahon were asleep in adjacent bunks 
opposite the radio room. Ausburne realizing the serious- 
ness of the situation, told McMahon to get his life pre- 



160 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

server on saying as he left the room to take his station at 
the radio key ' Good-by, Mac ! ' McMahon later, finding 
the radio room locked and seeing the ship was sinking, 
tried to get Ausburne out but failed. 

" As soon as the Henderson saw what was wrong she 
turned to starboard, and made a thick smoke screen which 
completely hid her from view. The Willehad turned to 
port and made off at best speed. The Corsair and Alcedo 
returned to the scene of the accident and circled about 
for about two hours, when the Alcedo began the work of 
rescue of the survivors, the Corsair continuing to look for 
the submarine. The total number of persons aboard the 
Antilles was 234, the Corsair rescuing 50 and the Alcedo 
117. Too much credit cannot be given to the officers and 
men of the Corsair and Alcedo for their rescue work and 
for the whole-heartedness and generosity in succoring the 
needs of the survivors. The work of the medical officers 
attached to the above vessels was worthy of highest praise. 

"An instance comes back which indicates the coolness 
of the gun crews. One member was rescued from the top 
of an ammunition box which by some means had floated 
clear and in an upright position. ^VTien this young man 
saw the Corsair standing down to him he semaphored not 
to come too close, as the box on which he was sitting con- 
tained live ammunition." 

The converted yacht Alcedo which fi^ired in 
this disaster did not long survive it. While escort- 
ing a convoy, off Quiberon, only a few weeks later, 
she, too, went down before the sinister stroke of 
an enemy torpedo. Commander W. T. Conn, Jr., 
wrote a graphic report of the sinking, from which 
I quote in part : 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 161 

" At or about 1 : 45 a.m. November 5, while sleeping in 
emergency cabin immediately under the upper bridge, I was 
awakened by a commotion and immediately received a re- 
port from some man unknown, ' Submarine, Captain ! ' 
I jumped out of bed and went to the upper bridge, and 
the officer of the deck. Lieutenant Paul, stated he had 
sounded 'general quarters,' had seen a submarine on the 
surface about 300 yards on the port bow, ?nd submarine 
had fired a torpedo which was approaching. I took station 
on port wing of upper bridge, and saw torpedo approaching 
about 200 yards distant. Lieutenant Paul had put rudder 
full right before I arrived on the bridge hoping to avoid 
the torpedo. The ship answered slowly to her helm, how- 
ever, and before any other action could be taken the torpedo 
I saw struck the ship's side immediately under the port 
forward chains, the detonation occurring instantly. I was 
thrown down and for a few seconds dazed by falling debris 
and water. 

" Upon regaining my feet I sounded the submarine alarm 
on the siren to call all hands if they had not heard the 
general alarm gong, and to direct the attention of the con- 
voy and other escorting vessels. Called to the forward 
gun crews to see if at stations, but by this time realized 
that the top gallant forcastle was practically awash. The 
foremast had fallen, carrying away radio aerial. I called 
out to abandon ship. 

" I then left the upper bridge and went into the chart 
house to obtain ship's position from the chart, but, as there 
was no light, could not see. I went out of the chart house 
and met the navigator. Lieutenant Leonard, and asked him 
if ho had sent any radio, and he replied ' No.' I directed 
him and accompanied him to the main deck and told him 



162 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

to take charge of cutting away forward dories and life 
rafts. 

" I then proceeded along starboard gangway and found a 
man lying face down in gangway. I stooped and rolled him 
over and spoke to him, but received no reply and was un- 
able to learn his identity, owing to the darkness. It is my 
opinion that this man was dead. 

*' I continued to the after end of the ship, took station on 
after-gun platform. I realized that the ship was filling 
rapidly and her bulwarks amidships were level with the 
water. I directed the after dories and life rafts to be cut 
away and thrown overboard and ordered the men in the 
immediate vicinity to jump over the side, intending to fol- 
low them. 

" Before I could jump, however, the ship listed heavily 
to port, plunging by the head, and sank, carrying me down 
with the suction. I experienced no difficulty, however, in 
getting clear, and when I came to the surface I swam a 
few yards to a life raft, to which were clinging three men. 
We climbed on board this raft and upon looking around 
observed Doyle, chief boatswain's mate, and one other man 
in the whaleboat. We paddled to the whaleboat and em- 
barked from the life raft. 

" Th whaleboat was about half full of water, and we 
immediately started bailing and then to rescue men from 
wreckage, and quickly filled the whaleboat to more than its 
maximum capacity, so that no others could be taken aboard. 
We then picked up two overturned dories which were nested 
together, separated them and righted them, only to find that 
their sterns had been broken. We then located another 
nest of dories, which were separated and righted and found 
to be seaworthy. Transferred some men from the whale- 
boat into these dories and proceeded to pick up other men 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 163 

from wreckage. During this time cries were heard from 
two men in the water some distance away who were hold- 
ing on to wreckage and calling for assistance. It is be- 
lieved that these men were Ernest M. Harrison, mess at- 
tendant, and John Winne, Jr., seaman. As soon as the 
dories were available we proceeded to where they were last 
seen, but could find no trace of them. 

" About this time, which was probably an hour after the 
ship sank, a German submarine approached the scene of 
torpedoing and lay to near some of the dories and life 
rafts. She was in the light condition, and from my ob- 
servation of her I am of the opinion that she was of the 
TJ-27-31 type. This has been confirmed by having a num- 
ber of men and officers check the silhouette book. The 
submarine was probably 100 yards distant from my whale- 
boat, and I heard no remarks from any one on the sub- 
marine, although I observed three persons standing on top 
of conning tower. After laying on surface about half an 
hour the submarine steered off and submerged. 

One officer and twenty men were lost with the 
Alcedo. Commander Conn, in talking later of the 
high discipline and bravery of the crew eighty per 
cent of whom by the way were Reserves, told this 
story : 

" I had a boy with me, a yeoman, one of the Naval Ee- 
serves. One day I told him that if we were ever torpedoed 
it would be his duty to save the muster roll, so that when 
all the survivors had reported we could check up and find 
out who had been lost. Sure enough, the torpedo came, and 
in the very dead of night. The ship floated just four min- 
utes. Hours after I encountered my young yeoman in a 



164 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

boat while we were waiting to be picked up. He was soaked 
through, for he had gone overboard when the ship sunk and 
clung to a broken buoy, holding up with one hand a hospital 
steward who was too weak to hold on longer. When I 
saw him I said, ' My man, where is my muster roll? ' ' Here 
it is,' he replied, putting his hand inside his dripping 
blouse and pulling it out. Through all the struggle with 
death he had never forgotten it." 

The most serious loss which the United States 
suffered at sea was one for which our navy was in 
no sense responsible. This loss was incurred in 
the sinking of the British ship, Tuscania, which 
was serving as a transport and was sent to the 
bottom by a German torpedo off the north coast 
of Ireland. The ship had on board at the time of 
the disaster 2,179 soldiers, mainly National 
Guardsmen from Michigan and Wisconsin. She 
was under convoy of British destroyers, and was 
in what was generally believed to be a zone of 
safety when the blow of the unseen enemy was 
struck. No sign of the assailant was seen, 
although in the gathering dusk the wake of a tor- 
pedo that missed was sighted, before a second one 
struck right amidships. 

The ship did not sink with the rapidity that 
marked the end of some stricken craft. Had she 
gone down on an even keel there would have been 
time to save most of those who were not injured 
in the explosion. Unfortunately she heeled over to 
starboard at such an angle as to make it impossible 
to launch the lifeboats on the port side. This sit- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 165 

uation arose so frequently in disasters during the 
war that innumerable devices were patented for 
expediting the lowering of boats from the side of 
a ship that was badly careened, but none was ever 
made serviceable. In the loss of the Tuscania, the 
ship heeled so far to starboard that her deck as- 
sumed an angle on which none could stand up- 
right. Men clambered down using every rope, cleat 
or other projection to give them a foothold until 
they reached the rail which was soon only a 
few feet above water. The steepness of the de- 
clivity threw many into the sea. Boats that were 
launched from the other side stuck on the hull of 
the ship, or fell into the water so unevenly that 
many were thrown out and drowned. It soon 
seemed as though the great mass of the troops 
would have to depend on individual efforts for 
safety, and many began putting on life preservers 
and jumping into the sea. 

At this moment the long low shape of a British 
destroyer was seen through the dark, slipping 
slowly alongside the sinking ship. With consum- 
mate skill her commander so steered her that she 
lay close enough to the side of the ship for men 
to jump from it to the deck of the rescuer. As fast 
as one destroyer had thus obtained a load another 
took her place, and in this way a great number of 
the men were saved. Meantime trawlers were 
coming up on every side, and began picking up 
those who had jumped into the sea, and were 
buoyed up by their life-belts. Many were saved in 



166 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

this way, but despite all efforts the toll of life was 
heavy, numbering 204 among the American soldiers 
alone. 

Survivors declare that unexpected as was the 
attack — the troops were at their dinner when the 
torpedo struck — there was no sign of panic. Many 
of the soldiers were lumber-jacks from Michigan 
and Wisconsin enlisted in the forestry battalions 
of the army. They were used to an active life and 
the presence of danger, and despite their brief 
period of drill and discipline responded promptly 
to the word of command and manifested the cool 
response to discipline characteristic of the veteran. 

On the last day of May, 1918, the transport. 
President Lincoln, which in her earlier and less 
glorious days had been a German liner under the 
same name was about seven hundred miles off the 
French coast returning to the United States with 
715 persons aboard. She was struck by three tor- 
pedoes and sunk in about twenty minutes. The 
vessel was a passenger liner of modern type, with a 
high superstructure amidships, and her great 
length made it impossible to give oral orders from 
the bridge which would be understandable in all 
parts of the ship. All the conditions made for panic 
and great loss of life, but the discipline of the men 
was so admirable that the ship was abandoned with 
the loss of but three officers and twenty-three men. 
Commander Percy W. Foote wrote a report of the 
disaster that gives a very graphic picture of the 
scene : 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 167 

" At about 9 A.M. a terrific explosion occurred on tlie 
port side of the ship about 120 feet from the bow and im- 
mediately afterwards another explosion occurred on the 
port side about 120 feet from the ^tern of the ship, these 
explosions being immediately identified as coming from 
torpedoes fired by a German submarine. 

" It was found that the ship was struck by three tor- 
pedoes, which had been fired as one salvo from the sub- 
marine, two of the torpedoes striking practically together 
near the bow of the ship and the third striking near the 
stern. The wakes of the torpedoes had been sighted by the 
officers and lookouts on watch, but the torpedoes were so close 
to the ship as to make it impossible to avoid them; and it 
was also found that the submarine at the time of firing 
was only about 800 yards from the President Lincoln. 

" Of the 23 men who were lost seven were engaged in work 
below decks in the forward end of the ship, and they were 
either killed by the force of the explosion of the two tor- 
pedoes which struck in that vicinity, or were drowned by the 
inrush of the water. The remaining 16 men were appar- 
ently caught on the raft alongside the ship and went down, 
this being probably caused by the current of water which 
was rushing into the big hole in the ship's side, as the men 
were on rafts which were in this vicinity. 

" There are many instances where a man showed more 
interest in the safety of another than he did for himself. 
When loading the boats from the rafts one man would hold 
back and insist that another be allowed to enter the boat. 
There was a striking case of this kind when about dark 
I noticed that Chief Master-at-Arms Eogers, who was 
rather an old man, and had been in the navy for years, was 
on a raft, and I sent a boat to take him from the raft, but he 
objected considerably to this, stating that he was quite all 



168 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

right, although as a matter of fact he was very cold and 
cramped from his long hours on the raft. 

" Fortunately this splendid type of life raft known as the 
Balsa raft, as it was made of balsa wood, had been fur- 
nished the ship, and these resulted in saving a great many 
men who might otherwise have been lost, due to exhaustion 
in the water. 

" The conduct of the men during this time of grave 
danger was thrilling and inspiring, as a large percentage of 
them were young boys, who had only been in the navy for 
a period of a few months. This is another example of the 
innate courage and bravery of the young manhood of 
America. 

" There were at the time 715 persons on board, including 
about 30 officers and men of the army. Some of these were 
sick and two soldiers were totally paralyzed. 

" The alarm was immediately sounded and every one went 
to his proper station which had been designated at previous 
drills. There was not the slightest confusion and the crew 
and passengers waited for and acted on orders from the 
commanding officer with a coolness which was truly in- 
spiring. 

" Inspections were made below decks and it was found 
that the ship was rapidly filling with water, both forward 
and aft, and that there was little likelihood that she would 
remain afloat. The boats were lowered and the life rafts 
were placed in the water and about 15 minutes after the 
ship was struck all hands except the guns' crews were 
ordered to abandon the ship. 

" It had been previously planned that in order to avoid 
the losses which have occurred in such instances by filling 
the boats at the davits before lowering them, that only one 
officer and five men would get into the boats before lowering 




U.S.S. PRES/Af wr UNQOLN 




Two Famous Ships: The President Lincoln, and President Wilson's 
Ship, the George JVashington, from an Airplane 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 169 

and that every one else would get into the water and get on 
the life rafts and then be picked up by the boats, this being 
entirely feasible, as every one was provided with an efficient 
life-saving jacket. One exception was made to this plan, 
however, in that one boat was filled with the sick before 
being lowered and it was in this boat that the paralyzed 
soldiers were saved without difficulty. 

" The guns' crews were held at their stations hoping for 
an opportunity to fire on the submarine should it appear 
before the ship sank, and orders were given to the guns' 
crews to begin firing, hoping that this might prevent fur- 
ther attack. All the ship's company except the guns' crews 
and necessary officers were at that time in the boats and on 
the rafts near the ship, and when the guns' crews began 
firing the people in the boats set up a cheer to show that 
they were not downhearted. The guns' crews only left their 
guns when ordered by the commanding officer just before 
the ship sank. The guns in the bow kept up firing until 
after the water was entirely over the main deck of the 
after half of the ship. 

"The state of discipline which existed and the coolness 
of the men is well illustrated by what occurred when the 
boats were being lowered and were about halfway from 
their davits to the water. At this particular time, there ap- 
peared some possibility of the ship not sinking immediately, 
and the comanding officer gave the order to stop lowering 
the boats. This order could not be understood, however, 
owing to the noise caused by escaping steam from the safety 
valves of the boilers which had been lifted to prevent ex- 
plosion, but by motion of the hand from the commanding 
officer the crews stopped lowering the boats and held them 
in mid air for a few minutes until at a further motion of the 
hand the boats were dropped into the water. 



170 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

" Immecliately after the ship sank the boats pulled among 
the rafts and were loaded with men to their full capacity 
and the work of collecting the rafts and tying them to- 
gether to prevent drifting apart and being lost was begun. 

" While this work was under way and about half an hour 
after the ship sank, a large German submarine emerged 
and came among the boats and rafts, searching for the com- 
manding officer and some of the senior officers whom they 
desired to take prisoners. The submarine commander was 
able to identify only one officer, Lieutenant E. V. M. Isaacs, 
whom he took on board and carried away. The submarine 
remainoi in the vicinity of the boats for about two hours 
and returned again in the afternoon, hoping apparently for 
an opportunity of attacking some of the other ships which 
had been in company with the President Lincoln, but which 
had, in accordance with standard instructions, steamed 
as rapidly as possible from the scene of attack. 

" By dark the boats and rafts had been collected and 
secured together, there being about 500 men in the boats 
and about 200 on the rafts. Lighted lanterns were hoisted 
in the boats and flare-up lights and Coston signal lights 
were burned every few minutes, the necessary detail of men 
being made to carry out this work during the night." 

It is worth noting as illustrative of the condi- 
tions of warfare forced by the submarine tactics 
that, although at the moment the President Lincoln 
was torpedoed she was in company of two other 
United States transports, her people were forced to 
rely for rescue upon destroyers summoned by wire- 
less from a distance of more than two hundred and 
fifty miles. The ships that were by her side scat- 
tered and fled, in accordance with standing orders, 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 171 

as soon as the explosion was heard. Commander 
Foote paid a tribute to the skill of the destroyer 
navigators who, despite the fact that the boats had 
drifted more than fifteen miles from the position 
reported by wireless, and no further wireless sig- 
nals were possible, discovered them promptly in 
the dead of night. 

One of the most extraordinary experiences of 
the whole war was that of Lieutenant Isaacs, who 
was picked up a captive by the submarine. Twice 
on the way back to the German port the " sub " 
was detected by American destroyers that dropped 
depth bombs in her wake. Though badly shaken 
up the ship was able to proceed, and when she was 
running on the surface in Danish waters Isaacs 
thought to escape by jumping overboard and seek- 
ing safety on the neutral shore. But he was caught 
and thereafter kept below. Landing at Wilhelms- 
haven he was sent by train to Karlsruhe. On the 
way he attempted to escape by jumping from the 
train window. The rest of his experience he may 
tell himself: 

'' I jumped to the opposite railroad track and was so 
severely wounded by the fall that I could not get away from 
my guard. They followed me, firing continuously. When 
they recaptured me they struck me on the head and body 
with their guns until one broke his rifle. It snapped in 
two at the small of the stock as he struck me with the butt 
on the back of the head. 

"I was given two weeks' solitary confinement for this 
attempt to escape, but continued trying, for I was deter- 



172 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

mmod to get my information back to the navy. Finally, 
on the night of October 6th, assisted by several American 
army officers, I was able to effect an escape by short- 
circuiting all lighting circuits in the prison camp and cut- 
ting through barbed-wire fences surrounding the camp. 
This had to be done in the face of a heavy rifle fire from the 
guards. But it was difficult for them to see in the dark- 
ness, so I escaped unscathed. 

"In company with an American officer in the French 
army, I made my way for seven days and nights over 
mountains to the Ehine, which to the south of Baden forms 
the boundary between Germany and Switzerland. After a 
four-hour crawl on hands and knees I was able to elude the 
sentries along the Ehine. Plunging in, I made for the 
Swiss shore. After being carried several miles down the 
stream, being frequently submerged by the rapid current, 
I finally reached the opposite shore and gave myself up 
to the Swiss gendarmes, who turned me over to the Ameri- 
can legation at Berne. From there I made my way to 
Paris and then London and finally Washington, where I 
arrived four weeks after my escape from Germany." 

Two anecdotes drawn from the disaster are 
worth telling as illustrating the spirit of the men. 
When the submarine appeared upon the surface 
there was natural apprehension lest she should fire 
upon the boats, as had been often the practice of 
the German commanders at such times. From the 
boats it looked as if a petty officer on the " sub " 
was engaged in taking the covering off the muzzle 
of the gun as if in preparation for firing. Where- 
upon one of the jackies remarked, " Good night. 
Here comes the fireworks." And later the chaplain 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 173 

in one of the boats, having said prayers, very prop- 
erly but with rather a dispiriting effect on the men, 
a petty officer sought to dispel the resultant gloom 
by starting up the tune, " Where do we go from 
here? " which was sung with gusto by all 
hands. 

Another transport that had safely landed her 
consignment of fighting men for France and was 
on the way home, when sent down by the enemy's 
torpedo, was the Covington, formerly the German 
liner Cincinnati. Just why the Navy Department 
insisted on changing this name is not known. 
Neither is it clear why, with the proper aversion to 
German names, the army maintained a transport 
called Zeppelin throughout the war. The Covington 
had sailed from Brest with a fleet of several other 
large transports when she was struck fairly abeam 
the engine-room by a torpedo. It was a sorry end to 
good service, for the ship had made six trips to 
France and had carried thither 27,000 fighting men 
for the overthrow of the Teutons. 

On the night of July 1, 1918, the foe had his re- 
venge; for the watchful lookouts had hardly re- 
ported sighting a streak of wiiite on the water 
about three hundred yards to port when with a 
terrific roar a torpedo struck the side of the ship 
and exploded, throwing up a column of water 
higher than the smokestocks. The wound was di- 
rectly abeam the engine-room and that compart- 
ment and the fireroom quickly filled with water. 
The bugles sang out the call, " Abandon ship," the 



174 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

men rushed to the boats, and the lights all over the 
vessel turned red and went out as the machinery- 
died in face of the inrushing water. In the black- 
ness of the night twenty-one of the twenty-seven 
lifeboats were lowered, despite a heavy list to port, 
and the lack of any power from the steam winches. 
The destroyer, Smith, which was happily at hand, 
took the men from the boats as fast as they could 
be carried across. In the meantime a salvage party 
remained on the ship, which for a time it seemed 
likely might be saved, gathering up records, sex- 
tants and chronometers and other portable articles 
of value. Two British tugs and an American 
steamer came out from Brest and an effort was 
made to tow the shattered ship to port. But her 
hurt was fatal. About noon of the day following 
the explosion it became evident that she was going 
down, and the hawsers of the towing vessels were 
cast loose. Her sinking was an extraordinary 
spectacle. " It was an awe-inspiring sight," wrote 
her captain, " as the ship rose rapidly to a vertical 
position in the water, the after smoke-pipe being 
clear when the ship was in a vertical position. 
This gave a spectacle of about 450 feet of this mag- 
nificent 1,700 ton liner, standing as a shaft on the 
surface of the sea. The ship remained in this posi- 
tion for a period of ijerha^is ten to fifteen seconds, 
then sank rapidly in the vertical position, the bow 
disappearing at 2*82 p.m. It was providential that 
all men had been removed from the ship before she 
rose vertically from the water. Had there been 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 175 

any aboard they would undoubtedly have been 
lost." 

As it was, happily, no lives at all were lost. 

The last of our troopships to meet with serious 
disaster was the Mount Yernon, which was tor- 
pedoed when two hundred and fifty miles off the 
coast of France on her return voyage. She was, 
however, saved through the seamanlike skill of her 
officers and men, and brought all crippled into a 
French port. But in the explosion which sorely 
shattered her the lives of thirty-six of her people 
were lost. 

In the days of her Teutonic infancy the Mount 
Yernon had been the Kronprinzessin Cecelie, and 
with a tonnage of 18,600 became one of our largest 
transports. The periscope of the submarine that 
dealt the fatal blow was discovered and one of the 
ship's guns was in action when the missile struck. 
The report of the commanding officer. Captain D. 
E. Dismukes, gives a vivid picture of the scene 
which, with some condensation, may well be 
printed here : 

" The explosion was so terrific that for an instant it 
seemed that the ship was lifted clear out of the water and 
torn to pieces. Men at the after guns and depth charge sta- 
tions were thrown to the deck, and one of the 5-inch guns 
thrown partly out of its mount. Men below in the vicinity 
of the explosion were stunned into temporary unconscious- 
ness. 

" It was soon ascertained that the torpedo had struck 
,the ship fairly amidships, destroying four of the eight 



176 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

boiler rooms and flooding the middle portion of the ship 
from side to side for a length of 150 feet. The ship in- 
stantly settled 10 feet increase in draft, but stopped there. 
This indicated that the water-tight bulkheads were holding, 
and we could still afford to go down 2y2 feet more before 
she would lose her floating buoyancy. 

" The immediate problem was to escape a second tor- 
pedo. To do this two things were necessary, to attack the 
enemy, and to make more speed than he could make sub- 
merged. The depth charge crews jumped to their stations 
and immediately started dropping depth bombs. A barrage 
of depth charges was dropped, exploding at regular intervals 
far below the surface of the water. This work was beauti- 
fully done. The explosions must have shaken the enemy 
up, at any rate he never came to the surface again to get 
a look at us. 

" The other factor in the problem was to make as much 
speed as possible, not only in order to escape an immediate 
attack, but also to prevent the submarine from tracking us 
and attacking after nightfall. 

" C. L. O'Connor, water tender was in one of the flooded 
firerooms. He was thrown to the floor and instantly en- 
veloped in flames from the burning gases from the furnaces, 
but instead of rushing to escape he turned and endeavored 
to shut a water-tight door leading into a large bunker abaft 
the fireroom, but the hydraulic lever that operated the door 
had been injured by the shock and failed to function. 
Three men at work in this bunker were drowned. 

"If O'Connor had succeeded in shutting the door, the 
lives of tftese men would have been saved, as well as con- 
siderable buoyancy saved to the ship. The fact that he, 
though profoundly stunned by the shock and almost fatally 
burned by the furnace gases, should have had presence of 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 177 

mind and the courage to endeavor to shut the door is as 
great an example of heroic devotion to duty as it is possible 
for one to imagine. Immediately after attempting to close 
the door O'Connor was caught in the swirl of inrushing 
water and thrust up a ventilator leading to the upper deck. 
He was pulled up through the ventilator by a rope lowered 
to him from the upper deck. 

" The torpedo exploded on a bulkhead separating two fire- 
rooms, the explosive effect being apparently about equal in 
both firerooms, yet in one fireroom not a man was saved, 
while in the other fireroom two of the men escaped. The 
explosion blasted through the outer and inner skin of the 
ship and through an intervening coal bunker and bulkhead, 
hurling overboard 750 tons of coal. The two men saved 
were working the fires within 30 feet of the explosion and 
just below the level where the torpedo struck. 

" It is difficult to see how it was possible for these men to 
have escaped the shower of debris, coal and water that must 
instantly have followed the explosion. However, the two 
men were not only saved but seem to have retained full 
possession of their faculties. Both of them were knocked 
down and blown across the fireroom. Their sensations were 
first a shower of flying coal, followed by an overwhelming 
inrush of water that swirled them round and round and 
finally thrust them up against the gratings above the top 
of the firerooms. Both of them fortunately struck exit 
openings in the gratings and escaped. 

" One of the men, P. Fitzgerald, after landing on the 
lower grating and while groping his way through the dark- 
ness trying to find the ladder leading above, stumbled over 
the body of a man lying on the grating. He at first thought 
the man dead but on second impulse he turned and aroused 
him and led him to safety. The man had been stunned into 



178 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

semi-unconsciousness and would undoubtedly have been lost 
if Fitzgerald had not aroused him. As a matter of fact, the 
water rose at once 10 feet above this grating as the ship 
settled to the increased draft. 

" Another interesting instance of presence of mind and 
the ejffect of training may be cited. The attack occurred 
when all the men not on watch were at breakfast. One of 
the mess rooms is on the lowest deck aft, and it happens 
that there is only one exit to the compartment. Naturally, 
when the shock of the explosion came the men at the tables 
made a rush for the exit hatch. One of the men, Thomas F. 
Buckley by name, at first thrown to the deck by the force 
of the explosion, jumped upon one of the steps, turned and 
yelled, ' Eemember, boys, we are all Americans and it's 
only one hit.' The doctrine had been constantly preached 
to the men that one hit would not sink the ship if every 
man would do his full duty. This warning from Buckley 
was electrifying. All men immediately calmed themselves 
and went, not to their boats to abandon ship, but to their 
collision stations to save her." 

But amidst all the excitement on the ship the 
need for protection against the enemy was not for 
a moment lost sight of. There was danger that the 
submarine might find opportunity to let fly another 
torpedo, and to avert this depth bombs were 
dropped, and the batteries manned to give the foe 
a hot reception should he show his head above 
water. In one minute and ten seconds after the 
explosion an effective barrage of depth bombs was 
thus laid down, and within two hours the engine- 
room wreckage had been patched up and the ship 
was on her way back to Brest. She had, beside the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 179 

rest of her company, 150 wounded soldiers on their 
way home who could never have been saved but for 
the perfect discipline that saved the ship. 

One of the two mysteries of the war in its rela- 
tion to the United States navy, was the sinking of 
the armed coast guard steamer, Tampa, in the Eng- 
lish Channel, September 26, 1918, with a loss of 
118 men. The Tampa was on patrol in company 
with other vessels, most of them of the British 
navy. Suddenly the ships nearest her, at a dis- 
tance of several miles, heard a thunderous roar and 
the little revenue cutter was seen to vanish in 
smoke and flame. By the time rescuers could reach 
the scene there was nothing left but floating wreck- 
age. Not a man survived to tell the story of the 
disaster. With this occurrence in point of mys- 
tery ranks the utter and complete disappearance of 
the gigantic collier Cyclops, a steel ship of 19,000 
tons, carrying 20 officers, 213 men and 57 pas- 
sengers. 

This ship, one of the newest and most seaworthy 
vessels of the navy, put in at Barbadoes, West 
Indies, on March 13, 1918, for coal. She was carry- 
ing a full cargo of manganese, and despite the fact 
that one of her engines was out of order was ex- 
pected to reach New York by the 13th. But after 
she passed out of the harbor of Barbadoes not a 
sign of her has ever been seen. No vessel in those 
frequented trade routes sighted her afloat, or saw 
any wreckage that might suggest her loss. Despite 
the size of her crew and passenger list no boat was 



180 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ever seen on the waters in her path. No tropical 
hurricane or other convulsion of nature was re- 
ported in those seas to explain her disappearance, 
and when the war ended diligent inquiries in Ger- 
many failed to elicit any information as to her hav- 
ing been sunk by a submarine. The case bids fair 
to remain one of the insoluble mysteries of the sea, 
made the more mysterious by the fact that the Navy 
Department was quick to comb the seas in the path 
of her intended course with the immense number 
of destroyers, sub-chasers and cruisers at its dis- 
posal. Probably no ship was ever so thoroughly 
sought. None was more completely obliterated. 
That so large a vessel could disappear without leav- 
ing a shred of wreckage, or a boatload of survivors 
would be incredible if it were not the fact. 

With all our naval losses, however, there was 
none that would compare with the sinking of a 
troopship carrying four to six thousand soldiers 
— and we had many such at sea. Yet not only was 
none sunk but the Germans made no serious at- 
tacks upon any. Several reasonable explanations 
are given for their apparent failure to at least at- 
tempt so terrible a stroke. 

It is urged that when we entered upon the war 
the German government was convinced that its 
chance for victory was gone, and that a draw was 
the best outcome of the war for which they might 
hope. In such event with the certainty of the pres- 
ence of the United States at the peace table, pru- 
dent German statesmen thought it best to refrain 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 181 

from awakening too bitter resentment among the 
American people. The sinking of a troopship 
with the loss of five thousand American lives would 
have little bearing on the progress or outcome of 
the war. For four years battles in which the sac- 
rifice of life was greater than that had been of 
almost weekly occurrence. But such a sacrifice of 
American lives at a stroke would infuriate the 
American people, and breed a hatred more lasting 
than would grow out of any fairly fought battle, 
however heavy the loss. So cool heads at Berlin 
advised leaving our troopships alone. 

Such was one explanation. Another was that 
the troopships came to France by one route; the 
food-ships to England by another. Germany had 
not enough submarines to block both lanes. The 
starvation of England was the all-important task. 
If that could be accomplished it was immaterial 
how many American soldiers were landed in 
France. Accordingly, Germany concentrated on 
the food-ships — and lost. 

And there was a third explanation, simpler and 
more satisfying — namely, that the American navy 
so guarded its troopships, with sub-chasers, de- 
stroyers and cruisers that no U-boat could break 
through the phalanx to deliver its fatal stroke. 
Probably that was in fact the real reason why not 
one soldier was lost on an American transport on 
the way to France. 



CHAPTER VI 

Our battle fleet. — EflForts to keep it at home. — Admiral Rodman's 
command. — Watching for the enemy. — The battleships at sea. 
— Destroyers in a storm. — The North Sea mine barrage. — 
Sweeping up the mines. — Naval guns ashore. — Our far-flung 
squadrons. 

It was the " small fry " of the navy — the de- 
stroyers, submarine-chasers and the light cruisers 
— that were in the public eye during the World 
War. The dreadnoughts and battleships vanished 
from the sight of the ordinary citizen when the war 
began and he had but the vaguest idea of where 
they might be until its end. That they could not 
be engaged upon any very spectacular service he 
could guess from the fact that while he heard little 
of them he heard less of any considerable fleet 
battles in which they might be engaged side by 
side with the ships of our allies. At the opening 
of the war there was a cry for the retention of our 
fleet on our own coasts. Newspapers — usually of 
a type which had manifested a certain sympathy 
for Germany — rang the changes upon alarmist 
forebodings of a German raid on our coastwise 
cities, and demanded that the fleet be kept close at 
home to avert any such peril. The same news- 
papers and their political following insisted that 
we should keep our army at home, not " compel our 

182 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 183 

brave boys to shed their blood on foreign fields," 
and that our part in the war should be confined to 
standing on our coasts and defying the Germans to 
attack us here. 

Had that policy prevailed the war would have 
been greatly prolonged and our ships and troops 
might, indeed, have been needed for home defense 
at a time when the Germans, having disposed of all 
their other enemies, could have given their undi- 
vided attention to us. Happily for the honor of 
our country and fortunately for civilization that 
policy of perfidy and cowardice did not prevail. 
The United States went into the war with every 
pound of power it possessed and her armed forces, 
military and naval, were sent swiftly to the front 
at the points where the fighting promised to be 
hardest and the results most decisive. Our de- 
stroyers, as has been told, went first and fairly 
astonished our allies with the promptitude with 
which they took up their war activities. Our army, 
to the number of more than two million was fer- 
ried to France in time to give the foe his death 
stroke. And our battle fleet, despite the clamor of 
those who w^ould have doomed it to ignoble inac- 
tivity on our own coasts, was promptly by the side 
of our British brothers in arms on the cold, gray 
reaches of the North Sea. 

While Americans were wondering what had be- 
come of their battleships, and while the wise ones 
were saying that they were cruising in South 
American waters, a fleet of dreadnoughts had in 



184 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

fact been dispatched to Europe under command of 
Admiral Hugh Rodman. In the fleet were our 
most powerful ships: the New York, Captain C. 
F. Hughes, afterward Captain E. L. Beach; the 
Wyoming, Captain H. A. Wiley, afterward Captain 
H. H. Christy; the Florida, Captain Thomas Wash- 
ington, afterward Captain M. M. Taylor ; the Dela- 
ware, Captain A. H. Scales ; the Arkansas, Captain 
W. H. G. Bullard, afterward Captain R. L. de 
Steiguer, and the Texas, Captain Victor Blue. 

This was a fleet of tremendous power — its ships 
all modern and their crews drilled to the highest 
efiiciency. Alone it could have given the Germans 
a hard brush for victory, but its addition to the 
British fleet gave the Allies so overwhelming a 
superiority afloat in the North Sea that it became 
morally certain that the Germans would not come 
out to offer battle. But for the long months that 
our ships spent in those icy northern waters each 
day's routine was conducted as though a daring 
enemy of menacing strength might at any moment 
show his wisps of smoke on the horizon. 

Somewhat to the rage of the British-haters in our 
country the first American battle squadron was 
sent to become a division of the British Grand 
Fleet and placed under the command of its ad- 
miral. Sir David Beatty. This was quite in accord- 
ance with the generous and hearty methods of co- 
operation among the Allies which put all the Brit- 
ish armies in Europe under the command of a 
Frenchman, Marshall Foch. Admiral Rodman 



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says of the results of this co-operation, in his 
report : 

" Now as to our operations with the Grand Fleet. 
When we joined we were at once, thanks to our home 
training, able to co-ordinate and co-operate with the 
British fleet. In order to work homogeneously we 
adopted their signals and methods of communication, 
their plans, policies, maneuvers and tactics; we took our 
share of the work, patrol, search, protecting the convoys, 
mining and other activities. Sometimes we were com- 
manded by British admirals, sometimes they served under 
my command; there was never the slightest friction, mis- 
understanding, or petty jealousy. In fact our mutual 
association in this war's work has drawn us so close 
together that in the Grand Fleet it was instrumental in. 
ripening friendship with brotherhood." 

A second squadron was sent over later for the 
especial purpose of being at hand to guard our 
troopships in the event a single enemy armed ship 
should manage to slip out to sea. This squadron, 
in order to be nearer the route of the troopships, 
was kept at Berehaven, Ireland. It was composed 
of three of our most powerful dreadnoughts: the 
Nevada, Captain A. T. Long, afterward Captain 
W. C. Cole; the Oklahoma, Captain M. L. Bristol, 
afterward Captain C. B. McVay, and the Utah, Cap- 
tain F. B. Bassett. The squadron was under the 
general command of Rear-Admiral Thomas S. 
Rodgers. Its duty was a rather dismal one. Bere- 
haven, in Bantry Bay, on the extreme southwestern 
coast of Ireland, is but a melancholy little hamlet. 



186 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

In it was no entertainment for officers or men. If 
there had been they could hardly have take advan- 
tage of it for the incessant vigilance imposed upon 
them made shore leave infrequent. There was no 
overnight leave. Shore liberty was restricted to 
four hours, and those enjoying it were not per- 
mitted to go out of communication with their ships. 
As for active service that was made impossible by 
the tenacity with which the foe clung to his forti- 
fied ports. 

Admiral Rodman's squadron had at least the 
semblance of naval activity. It is true that the 
enemy did not respond to their repeated challenges, 
but at least they had the excitement of offering 
him opportunity to fight. Every possible induce- 
ment was offered him. Ships, singly or in small 
squadrons, would be sent into the waters adjacent 
to his lurking-place to lure him out. Convoys, ap- 
parently but slightly defended, passed within easy 
striking distance of his base. Of course, behind 
was the Allied fleet in ample strength to pounce 
upon him should he come out. And equally, of 
course, the Boche, being nobody's fool, suspected 
this and lay where he would be safe. 

Occasionally the Germans made a hasty ex- 
cursion into the water of the North Sea. Their 
spokesmen described these forays as defiance of 
the Allied fleets and insisted that the latter were 
afraid to " take up the dare." But the excursions 
were but a little way out to sea — however impres- 
sive the departure from Kiel or Wilhelmshaven 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 187 

might have looked to those who saw the fleet 
depart. 

Concerning the part played by the United States 
ships, and the position held by them in these efforts 
to come to grips with the enemy, Admiral Rodman 
had this to say : 

" Within a very short time of our first operations with 
the Grand Fleet we were assigned to one of the two places 
of honor and importance in the battle line. We were 
known and designated as the Sixth Battle Squadron, and, 
as one of the two fast wings, would take station at the head 
or rear of the whole battleship force, dependent upon cer- 
tain conditions unnecessary to mention, when going into 
action. As a matter of fact, when, on one occasion we 
came within a few miles of cutting off from its base and 
engaging the German fleet, the disposition was such that 
the American battleship division would have been in the 
van and have led into action, had the enemy not avoided 
action and taken refuge behind his defenses, as usual, be- 
fore we could catch him. 

" It was our policy to go after him every time he showed 
his nose outside of his ports; no matter when or where, 
whether in single ships, by divisions, or his whole fleet, 
out we went, day or night, rain or shine (and there was 
mighty little daylight, and much less shine in the winter 
months), blow high or blow low, and chase him back in 
his hole. So persistent was this performance on our part, 
so sure were we to get after him, that toward the end he 
rarely ventured more than a few miles from his base." 

The chief danger against which our battleships 
had to guard was submarine attack. There were 



188 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

several narrow escapes, in which destruction was 
averted only by the swift decision and seamanlike 
action of our oflftcers. Once the New York was 
actually rammed by a submarine — not a torpedo. 
iThe snout of the U-boat made a big dent in the 
battleship's hull near the propeller, and there was 
every reason to believe that the screw of the larger 
craft, which was under way at the moment, sunk 
the submarine of which no sign was detected. 
Probably the collision was wholly accidental, as, 
had the commander of the submarine been aware of 
his proximity to the flagship he could easily have 
sunk her with a torpedo, even though by so doing 
he sacrificed himself. After this escape, as the 
WeWi York, with one propeller out of commission, 
was proceeding to drydock for repairs she was at- 
tacked by torpedoes three times but dodged them 
all. 

More wearing upon the men than any active 
battle service could have been was the long strain 
of ceaseless watching in that foggy, cold and tem- 
pestuous sea. The latitude in which the ships were 
operating was north of that of Sitka, Alaska, or 
on about the same parallel as Petrograd. At all 
times the North Sea is famous for its turbulence 
and fogs. In winter it was a madly tossing waste 
of water, beaten by high winds, scourged with driv- 
ing storms of snow, hail and sleet. Up and down 
its rolling reaches the ships steamed, all lights out, 
their decks awash, plunging and rolling in the 
heavy seas until it seemed that not even the pon- 
derous steel frames of the battleships themselves 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 189 

could withstand so racking a strain. From sunset 
to sunrise, that is from fifteen to eighteen hours in 
winter, not a ray of light was permitted to shine 
from any ship. Men whose duty called them to the 
decks had to grope their way in Stygian darkness 
and risk the sudden rush of a wave across their 
unstable footing. And all about were other battle- 
ships, with their attendant satellites of cruisers 
and destroyers likewise plunging through the 
blackness. It was amazing that collisions did not 
work upon the fleet that deadly damage the Ger- 
mans never attempted to inflict. 

In an admirable book, " The Fighting Fleets," 
Mr. Ralph D. Paine, who had the fortune to be with 
the fleets and who writes of the sea with a sailor's 
knowledge, and a landsman's fresh enthusiasm, 
tells of one of the sallies of the Grand Fleet as he 
saw it: 

"As the moment of departure drew near the blinker 
lights flashed from scores of British ships. The darkness 
sparkled with these final messages. Then the bare hill- 
sides roundabout re-echoed to the harsh clank of chain 
cables as the anchors lifted. After that the black night 
and silence, and great ships stealing out slowly toward 
the headlands and the fairway to the sea. Most of them 
were invisible, for the sky was densely overcast and the 
freshening wind brought gusts of rain. They passed out 
as though feeling their way with a blind man's sense of 
perception, so many hundred yards apart, steering close 
to rock-bound islands whose merest touch would have 
ripped a ship's hull. 



190 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

"Now the big ships do not move alone. They are 
escorted as befits their stately rank and station, and with 
them go the flocks of destroyers, the submarines, the 
cruisers and other craft that screen, scout and protect the 
mighty squadrons. All these, too, were under way at the 
stroke of the hour as if a master mind had pressed a key 
that animated them as one. They fled on their appointed 
courses without confusion, unerringly, separate parts of one 
enormous mechanism, harmonious and synchronized. To 
navigate this fleet through the cramped roadstead in broad 
daylight would have been considered a handsome feat in 
time of peace. 

" A glimpse of this sea power was dramatically revealed 
when a dawn, somber and angry, slowly drove the darkness 
from the melancholy expanse of water. The wind had 
risen rapidly. It was a shouting gale which tore the 
shallow depths into foam-streaked combers, huge and vio- 
lent. The confused fury of the sea was astonishing. This 
sudden gale which blew with a velocity of seventy miles an 
hour would have flattened the North Atlantic and then 
rolled it up in long swinging surges. Here it tumbled the 
sea this way and that so that a ship was assaulted with 
unexpected blows and could find no respite. 

" Off to port and starboard moved in dim perspective 
other lines of battleships. Dead ahead was the majestic 
superdreadnought which a British admiral had chosen for 
his flagship. The seas were leaping over her. They poured 
across her decks as a tide swirls over a reef. They reared 
and broke in white cascades about her turrets from which 
the great guns grimly showed their hooded snouts. Rolling 
ponderously she exposed almost half her hull and then 
plunged into it with bows clean under. Seas that will 







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BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 191 

toss a thirty thousand ton battleship about in this fashion 
are indubitably rough. 

" Our own ship was making no better weather of it. 
The motion was not as erratic as that of a destroyer, but 
this great citadel of a vessel was by no manner of means 
comfortable to live in. Meals at the table in wardroom or 
admiral's cabin were out of the question. Chairs were 
lashed fast. Men moved with care lest they toboggan 
across the deck and break a leg. Water swashed in when 
the gunports rolled under and barelegged blue jackets were 
baling the floors with buckets. It was damp, gloomy, dis- 
mal below with the hatches battened, but the ship had 
bucked through heavier storms than this, and these hundreds 
of American sailors were salt water philosophers. It was a 
heap sight worse in the trenches, said they, and the guy 
who beefed about staying wet and losing sleep for twenty- 
four hours or so was a short-card sport." 

If such were the conditions of life on a dread- 
nought in a winter's gale what must they have been 
on a destroyer. These long and needle-like craft 
had a genius for rolling and plunging. Their 
draft was light, usually about twelve feet. Their 
beam was about one-tenth of their length — averag- 
ing twenty-six feet. Sharp-bowed, they cut into the 
seas and took green ones over the bow or the 
quarter until they seemed like submarines running 
awash. Along the decks were strung wire hawsers 
on which were suspended small trolleys with loops 
to which the sailor seeking to go from one end of 
the deck to the other clung desperately, often with 
his feet flung high in air by some great comber rush- 



192 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ing along the deck below him. It is reported that 
a lad on one of these destroyers, whose grip on his 
trolley was insecure, was swept away into the mad 
turmoil of raging waters. His comrades flung a 
life-buoy after him, but there was no possibility of 
attempting a rescue. They turned away sadly, and 
the report to the captain that night told of one man 
lost. Some days afterward, on returning with the 
rest of the boats of their flotilla to the base, the 
shipmates of the vanished man were amazed to see 
him coming aboard in the most matter of fact way 
to report. It appeared that just as one wave had 
swept him off the deck of his own ship, another had 
deposited him gently on that of a destroyer fol- 
lowing in the column. Warned by experience he 
grabbed his trolley this time and hung tight. 

" Young man," said his captain solemnly, when 
he made his report, " you'd better resign from the 
navy. You have had all the luck that is coming to 
you in this service." 

None of the bone-shaking devices operated for 
sport at Coney Island, or other American pleasure 
resorts, could for a moment approach in eccentric- 
ity of motion, and jerky assaults upon equilibrium, 
and the stability of man sitting or standing, one of 
these destroyers. It was as bad, perhaps worse, 
below than on deck though the added peril of the 
rushing waves was indeed wanting there. At night 
officers had to be strapped in their narrow bunks 
to keep them from rolling out, and at that the pre- 
caution was not always effective. The scientific 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 193 

fellows say that a destroyer will roll through an arc 
of sixty degrees in six seconds, and has been known 
to cover seventy-five degrees. The geometrical 
phrase conveys little idea of what this means to the 
man who is trying to keep his balance on a floor 
pitching at such a rate, and with but little space for 
staggering. Arms and legs were often broken by 
men being thrown with violence against bulkheads 
or furniture. Mere rolling was commonplace. A de- 
stroyer taking the sea on her quarter will develop 
a corkscrew twist that unsettled the stoutest stom- 
ach, and sets rolling about the wardroom every- 
thing that is not screwed down. Setting table for 
meals is unthought of. The chairs are strapped 
down and the men, eating hungrily, often wish they 
were strapped to the chairs and their food strapped 
to their fingers. 

One of the great pieces of work performed by our 
fleet in the North Sea was the laying of the mine 
barrage which was designed still further to curb 
the activities of the enemy submarines. Though 
performed in co-operation with the British navy 
this enterprise was undertaken at the suggestion of 
an American officer, Rear-Admiral Ralph Earle, 
and the form of mine was of American origin. In 
all, 70,100 mines were laid, of which 56,570 were 
American. The barrage stretched across the North 
Sea, from the Orkneys to the coast of Norway, a 
distance of 230 miles. Within this area no ship, 
either surface or submarine, could navigate with- 
out imminent danger of being blown into frag- 



194 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ments. The course of the safety lanes which trav- 
ersed the field of death were known only to the 
Allies, who put trusted pilots on neutral ships to 
take them through in safety. But for any enemy 
vessel it was certain destruction to brave the ex- 
plosive seas. To what extent it proved a deterrent 
to U-boats trying to make the Atlantic is not 
known, as any that may have been destroyed would 
have perished unseen on a sea that was necessarily 
deserted. But the British authorities estimated 
that not less than ten were sunk, while many were 
kept from their chosen hunting-ground by the peril 
of reaching it. 

Laying the mines was a sufficiently delicate and 
arduous task. Handling infernal machines stuffed 
full of high explosives, in a heavy sea with a boat 
that careers like a bucking broncho was an occupa- 
tion that might try the stoutest nerves. Always, 
too, the mine layers were exposed to possible attack 
from the air by enemy aircraft, or from the sea by 
submarines. To guard against this they were ac- 
companied by destroyers and battle cruisers from 
the Grand Fleet. But even more perilous, and 
lacking the stimulant of war-time conditions was 
the job of removing the mines after peace was de- 
clared. Each nation swept up its own mines, and 
as the United States navy had laid the greater part 
of them, its task in the general cleaning up was the 
more arduous. 

An officer in the Naval Reserve, Lieutenant Dud- 
ley A. Nichols, told in the 'New York Times of the 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 195 

work of the mine-sweepers in a way that makes 
clear the ingenuity of the apparatus employed, and 
the inevitable hazard of the service: 

" To the layman the term mine sweeping will convey 
only a vague idea of the procedure followed out. It is a 
cutting rather than a sweeping process, for each mine is 
held in its proper position and at a certain level by a 
steel mooring rope which is fastened to an anchor resting 
on the bottom, and this mooring rope must be cut in order 
to bring the mine to the surface. 

" An elementary form of sweep might consist merely of 
a heavy steel cable having each of its ends made fast to a 
tug, so that with the two tugs steaming abreast of each 
oth£r this cable would catch the mooring ropes of any mines 
within the area between them. Then the mines would be 
dragged along and in all probability the mooring ropes 
would finally part, allowing the buoyant mines to float to 
the surface. 

" To sweep a considerable area, however, the sweeping 
tugs must proceed with all possible speed, and as soon as 
this is done the horizontal water pressure against the cable 
lifts it to the surface, with the result that the mines are 
passed over. Too overcome this the kite principle was 
adopted, but the kite was made to dive instead of fly. The 
water pressure on a mine sweeping kite causes it to dive 
just as the wind pressure on an ordinary box kite lifts it 
up high into the air. 

"A huge steel kite weighing 1,800 pounds is towed by 
each sweeper to attain the level of the deepest mines in 
the North Sea barrage, which were laid at the maximum 
depth to which a modern submarine dare submerge. 

" Just as lengthening the string to an ordinary kite will 



196 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

cause it to rise, lengthening the cable by which the water 
kite is towed causes it to dive deeper; and it is by this 
simple means that the mine sweepers are enabled to cut off 
mines at any desired depth. These vessels always work in 
pairs, the sweep for each pair comprising a kite towed 
by a wire rope from each ship and a steel cable stretched 
between the two kites. The wire rope is called the kite 
wire, while the steel cable takes the name of sweep wire. 

" As the minefield is neared the divisions segregate. On 
a division flagship a queer looking, checkered flag flutters 
up the signal halyard and the single line formation gives 
way to a formation in pairs or teams. Life-belts are donned. 
It is time to pass the sweep. In each pair one ship slows 
down slightly while her mate comes alongside until they 
are running abreast and about fifty feet apart. A hand- 
line is heaved across the gap between them, the end of the 
sweep wire hauled over and shackled to its other half, and 
as they diverge the wire is rapidly paid out. The kites 
are launched with a great splash and the sweepers wheel 
into the lines of mines, maintaining a constant separation 
of four or five hundred yards. 

" It is at this moment that pandemonium begins. Mines 
explode in the sweep, ahead, astern, on the beam, and every- 
where except directly underneath. At least one fervently 
hopes not underneath! The sea has suddenly become a 
Pandora's box teeming with evil spirits of noise and de- 
molition. 

" It is inconceivable that any ships can endure such tre- 
mendous shocks without sustaining serious damage. So 
severe is the shock from a deep level mine a hundred yards 
distant that it is as if a prodigious blow has been suddenly 
struck on the ship's keel by a colossal hammer. 

"A half mile astern of each pair of sweepers comes a 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 197 

little sub-chaser whose duty it is to sink all mines which 
are cut off and float to the surface. To accomplish this 
half a dozen men are kept busy firing service rifles. 

" Thousands of fish are stunned or killed by the explo- 
sions and the sub-chasers find time to pick up a deck load 
of these of a size, variety, and excellence to tempt an epi- 
cure. At night they generously distribute this cargo of 
fresh food among the sweepers; and as a result the sub- 
chasers have come to be dubbed the " fish boats." The sea- 
gulls quickly discovered this unlimited source of delicate 
food and became fast friends and followers of the mine 
sweepers." 

In its Marine Corps, famed for its historic rec- 
ord of daring and efficiency, the navy has always 
possessed a sort of amphibious force equally ready 
for fighting afloat or ashore. Of the services of 
that dashing band of " leather-necks " in the World 
War, full account will be given in another chapter. 
But in this war, more than ever before, the blue 
jackets themselves saw land service, and they con- 
tributed mightily to the success of the armies or our 
allies. 

Their great service of this character was in con- 
nection with the mounting and employment of 
great naval guns at various points on the Allied 
battle line during the last months of the war. 
Serving ship's guns ashore is no novelty in war, 
but when the guns happen to be of the fourteen- 
inch variety the task is one necessitating the great- 
est engineering skill, and the results are something 
for an enemy to worry about. 



198 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

It cannot be said that the idea of using the great 
guns of the navy ashore originated with either our 
naval authorities, or those of our allies. It is only 
natural that it should have suggested itself first to 
the Germans, as they had a large number of ships 
with high-calibered guns blockaded in port and use- 
less. As they did not dare to send the ships out 
to sea they stripped them of their guns which were 
mounted and used in the bombardments of Dun- 
kirk, Nancy and Chalons-sur-Marne. This German 
adventure offered a suggestion which the United 
States was not long to seize. If the Huns could 
send their guns ashore because they were not going 
to use their ships on the seas, it was obvious that 
ours would not be needed at sea and might likewise 
be used ashore. The German gun that was bom- 
barding Dunkirk was particularly harassing to the 
British and it was with the idea of demolishing that 
weapon that the project of putting ground mounts 
to several heavy cannon of the United States navy 
was undertaken. 

It was no trifling project. A fourteen-inch gun 
on a ship is mounted on an immovable base of 
heavy steel, fortified in every way against the shock 
and rack of the recoil. They were movable, only as 
the ship to the deck of which they were bolted was 
mobile. To be of service ashore they had to be 
given a mount that would permit their carriage 
from place to place as the shifting scenes of the 
war demanded. That meant that they must be 
mounted on railroad cars. Such was, therefore, the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 199 

task set for the American engineers. Cars must 
be designed to support the huge guns, and to sus- 
tain the racking shock of their explosion. To- 
gether with these must be cars for the ammunition, 
the guns' crews, and in fact a whole train for each 
of the monster cannon. The plans were worked out 
in the Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy, and the 
contract for the construction let to the Baldwin 
Locomotive Works, While the work of construc- 
tion was under way shells began falling in Paris. 
It was known that at that time the German lines 
were at least seventy miles away, and the world 
was for a time incredulous that the Boches could 
have invented and built a gun with that unheard-of 
range. But the shells kept on falling. However 
Incredible the gun might appear the shells were 
there, and very convincing in the damage they did. 
One fell in a church crowded with worshipers and 
killed scores of women and children on their knees 
before their God. Careful study of the methods of 
this bombardment, and of those of the gun firing 
upon Dunkirk showed that the two guns were not 
movable but were fixed upon solid foundations. 
The bombardment of Paris, conducted implacably 
and with fatal effect day after day, was having a 
bad effect upon the morale of the people in the 
French capital, and General Pershing himself sent 
appeals that the work on the American guns, which 
it was believed might silence that foe, should be 
expedited in every way. 

The contracts were let February 13, 1918, and in 



200 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

two months the first gun was finished and was 
being proved at Sandy Hook. By July all five guns 
were at St. Nazaire, and the guns' crews, selected 
from more than twenty thousand volunteers who 
had come forw^ard from the navy, had been organ- 
ized and drilled. But our difficulties were not at 
an end. It was one thing to build a colossal gun 
and construct a railway car to sustain its enormous 
weight. But it was quite another matter to find 
railroad road-beds and bridges that would stand 
the strain of its passage. The people of Paris were 
eager enough to have the guns sent up to the front 
whence they could demolish the German monster 
that was dropping two hundred-pound shells inside 
the circle of the boulevards, and indeed right in the 
quarter of Paris around the Place Vendome, which 
every tourist knows. But the railroad authorities 
were dubious. They at first declined the request 
for the use of their roads on which to transport the 
guns to the front, and for a time it looked as though 
our great rifles would be doomed to rest, untried, at 
St. Nazaire. But at this juncture the Germans re- 
doubled their fire upon Paris. The agony of the 
great city would not be denied. All protests on the 
part of the railroad managers were overruled, and 
the first great gun was started off on its progress 
toward the point to the northeast of Paris, whence 
it was to begin repaying the Germans in their own 
coin. Its progress was funereal in pace, but like a 
triumphant march in the popular ovations which 
attended it. Our own people shared the doubts of 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 201 

the French engineers as to the stability and suffi- 
ciency of their bridges and road-beds, and the train 
crawled cautiously along at a snail's pace, with the 
crews wondering at every moment if the track 
would crumble or the bridges collapse beneath the 
crushing weight. Along the way the populace 
turned out with cheers and music, and the girls of 
the little villages twined the long and sinister 
barrel of the great rifle with flowers. 

Joyous as this may have been to the Americans 
who were thus feted it spoiled their greater sport, 
for the triumphal progress was watched from the 
air by German aviators who reported to head- 
quarters the oncoming of the American giants. As 
a result before the guns reached their station the 
bombardment of Paris ceased, and investigation 
show^ed that the enemy had moved its great gun, 
leaving only the emplacements in position. The 
gun carriage was found after the armistice, but 
what ever became of the gun itself was always a 
mystery. While this conclusion was entirely satis- 
factory to the Parisians who were thus saved from 
the hourly anticipation of a murderous bombard- 
ment it was a decided disappointment to the 
American blue jackets who had hoped to try con- 
clusions with the Boche's biggest gun. 

This merely moral victory w^as not, however, the 
full measure of the service of the big naval guns in 
the Allied cause. They were used at various points 
for cutting German railway connections by de- 
stroying bridges, and tearing up the right-of-way. 



202 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

At Laon and north of Verdun they rendered in- 
estimable service in blocking the road necessary to 
the German supply trains, and the only one by 
which, in the event of disaster, the enemy could 
escape. From the time they were brought into 
action until the time of the armistice they fired 
782 shells at distances ranging from eighteen to 
twenty-three miles. In acknowledging the aid of 
the navy General Pershing says of these guns : 

" Our large caliber guns had advanced and were skil- 
fully brought into position to fire upon the important 
lines at Montmedy, Longuyon and Conflans, the strategical 
goal which was our highest hope was gained. We had cut 
the enemy's main line of communication, and nothing but 
surrender or an armistice could save his army from com- 
plete disaster." 

Though there was but little sea-fighting during 
the war the activities of our capital ships were 
widespread, and " far-flung " to use Kipling's 
phrase. They operated in the Mediterranean for 
the discomfiture of the Austrian and German sub- 
marines that swarmed there. The icy waters off 
the Murman Peninsula, where is located Russia's 
most northern port, held certain of our ships for a 
time, while their marines were landed to protect a 
strategic railroad. Our submarine chasers and 
other nondescript craft served long off Corfu, and 
at the entrance to the Adriatic, and for a time at 
Malta. The Pacific squadron, under command of 
Admiral William Caperton, cruised about the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 203 

coasts of South America, showing the flag in such 
ports as Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Eio de 
Janeiro. The Asiatic squadron, under Admiral 
Austin M. Knight patrolled Asiatic waters and 
took part in such Allied activities as occurred 
there. The Atlantic squadron, under Admiral 
Henry T. Mayo, guarded our eastern coasts. It had 
no actual call to actual battle service but, as was 
proper in view of the extreme importance of the 
section it guarded, was kept on a high state of 
efficiency, and besides its patrol duty served as a 
school in seamanship and gunnery for thousands of 
officers and sailors who were drawn from it for the 
rougher work of European waters. 

But in whatever station, and however imminent 
the danger to which they were exposed, or monot- 
onous the duty to which they were assigned, the 
men of the United States were at all times ready, 
fit and on tiptoe for response to the call of duty 
whatever it might be. When the war was ended 
there followed a storm of criticism bred of antago- 
nisms that had long been apparent between the 
Secretary of the Navy and certain prominent offi- 
cers of the line. But out of all the controversy 
that followed not one word was said reflecting on 
the quality, gallantry and efficiency of either officers 
or blue jackets in the great World War. 



CHAPTER VII 

The mystery ships. — Shrewdness of the Huns. — The " panic 
squad." — Exploits of Captain Gordon Campbell. — The "Dun- 
raven Affair." — The one United States mystery ship. — Sub- 
marine vs. submarine. — Advantage of underwater boats. — 
The navy that flies. — Poor record of airplane construction. 
— Training aviators. — Potter's battle with seven planes. — 
Adrift in the Channel. — Hunting subs with planes. — De- 
mobilizing the aerial navy. — The transatlantic flight. 

A WEAPON for use against the submarine which our 
British allies developed to the very highest stage 
of efficiency, but which we had little opportunity to 
employ, was the so-called "mystery ship" or " Q- 
ship." This in its ordinary form was a merchant- 
man, a " tramp," or a trawler which bore concealed 
in some way under its superstructure a gun which 
could send any submarine to the bottom. Manned 
by navy crews vessels of this sort had been operat- 
ing for nearly three years under the British flag 
before the general public knew that any such de- 
vice was being employed for the discomfiture of the 
Hun, It was a form of naval service in which the 
very least glory was obtainable, for its essence was 
complete secrecy. Even when the commander of a 
" mystery ship " was given the Victoria Cross the 
Admiralty carefully refrained from making public 
the nature of the service that had won it. Aboard 
ship all the comforts of naval service were done 

204 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 205 

away with, and all of its ceremony as well. There 
were no uniforms for officers while the roughest 
of " sea slops " picked up at second-hand shops 
along the waterfront disguised the quality of the 
men. Beards, banned in the navy, were encouraged 
in the mystery service. Sailors, pipe in mouth, 
would lounge up beside an officer looking over the 
rail, and salutes were carefully forgotten. The 
ships themselves were ill-kept and slovenly, desti- 
tute of that trig and ship-shape air that character- 
izes the navy. Even in port the disguise was kept 
up and officers and men slouched about in a fashion 
that would scandalize a true navy man ignorant of 
the circumstances. 

The ships were disguised in various ways. Some 
carried a five-inch gun amidships under the main 
hatch. At a touch on a lever the hatch would fly 
open and the gun automatically come to the level 
of the deck, while the bulwarks would fall away 
leaving an open port. Other ships instead of hav- 
ing the gun below would carry it on deck covered 
by a false deckhouse that fell to pieces at the word 
of command. Sometimes a boat, bottom-up on the 
deckhouse — common enough in the merchant serv- 
ice — concealed a gun. But these earlier and simpler 
devices were detected in time by the subs, whose 
commanders would not come to the surface until 
they had steamed all round a suspected merchant- 
man, examining her carefully for any signs of false 
work or tell-tale seams. As that was before the 
day of depth bombs the " sub " was perfectly safe 



206 ' BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

as long as she was submerged, however near she 
might be to her intended victim. 

It was the study of the submarine commanders 
never to waste a torpedo. These missiles were 
costly — about |12,000 each — the supply was limi- 
ted, and when those on a submarine were exhausted 
she had to return to her home port to stock up 
again. The authorities at home exacted a specific 
report for every torpedo gone, which was one of 
the reasons why the " subs," having sunk a ship 
by torpedo, always tried to take one prisoner away 
with them to testify to the sinking. Whenever pos- 
sible, however, they would save torpedoes by com- 
ing to the surface and destroying the victim by 
gunfire. When this was done, and the prize sur- 
rendered before sinking, they would usually send a 
boat aboard and complete the destruction by set- 
ting the prize afire. As the war wore on and Ger- 
many became hard up for food and other neces- 
saries the U-boat captains were eager to board their 
prizes and strip them of food, liquor and other sup- 
plies not readily obtainable at home. In this lay 
the opportunity of the " Q-boats," whose people 
would lie perdu behind bulwarks and deckhouses 
until the submarine was at their mercy, then rise to 
smash her with a shot or two. 

In time the suspicions of the enemy made even 
this difficult. He would not be sure that the ship 
that had surrendered was in fact a peaceful mer- 
chantman until he had shelled her pretty thor- 
oughly and felt assured that there was no crew 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 207 

lurking at an unseen gun for his undoing. This 
wise caution on the part of the Boche compelled the 
crews of the mystery ships to become actors of no 
small tragic skill. As soon as the torpedo or the 
first shell struck the ship they would begin to de- 
port themselves in a way which the blue jacket in 
his true character would regard with lofty scorn. 
They simulated a wild panic, ran hither and yon 
with cries of fear, pulled down any flag they might 
be showing and waved sheets or tablecloths in 
token of surrender. Sometimes, for deceptive pur- 
poses the mystery ship mounted a single gun, as 
in that day most merchantmen were armed and to 
show no armament might arouse suspicion. But 
the navy men who handled that gun did it like a 
crew of duffers, and seldom showed staying power 
for more than a single shot. So far as the crew of 
the submarine could see the one desire of their vic- 
tims was to get off their threatened ship as quickly 
as possible. The rush for the boats was wild and 
disorderly, and there were usually a few who had 
been trained to fall into the water with artfully 
simulated clumsiness. 

But all the time down below, grouped about the 
real effective gun, was a cool-headed, disciplined 
crew of British blue jackets waiting and praying 
for the submarine to get within point-blank range. 

As has been said the war ended too suddenly for 
this strategy to be employed by our navy, though at 
the time of its conclusion one mystery ship, manned 
by our fellows, was cruising the sea in search of a 



208 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

quarry. But as the system had been adopted by 
our navy one or two illustrations of the way it was 
worked by our allies will not be out of place. 

Even in the dispatch of the boats from the in- 
jured ship there was artful dissimulation. It must 
appear to be a real abandonment of the ship, and 
the boats must be so disposed as to coax the enemy 
into short range. The Germans were always eager 
to get hold of the papers of a sunken ship, in order 
to prove to the authorities at home that the quarry 
had actually been destroyed. Accordingly, of the 
men detailed to make the spectacular escape there 
was always one who played the part of the captain 
— the real captain, of course, remaining on board 
to deliver the final stroke. This false captain 
would always be ostentatiously the last to leave the 
sinking ship. With a final glance up and down her 
decks, of course carefully observed through the 
watching periscope, he would, with many gestures, 
give a few final words of command, and very openly 
toss into the boat awaiting him a large roll of 
papers — obviously the very documents for which 
Fritz was hungering. Then the boats would pull 
away. But even in that was system. The boat 
holding the " captain " was the one close to which 
the enemy would rise if he came up at all. Accord- 
ingly, it must keep a place near the abandoned ship. 
The other boats while apparently keeping near 
their leader must try to hold such positions that 
they would not be in the line of fire, should the 
submarine appear, or should she, if she had been 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 209 

already attacking by shell-fire at a distance, ap- 
proach near enough to offer a fair target. 

Sometimes the submarine would come close to 
the ship, still submerged, and steam slowly around 
her, peering closely through her periscope in search 
of any suspicious signs. Sometimes she would rise 
at a distance of three miles or so and begin a slow 
bombardment. At that distance a merchant ship 
is a fair target, but a submarine, lying low in the 
water, is almost impossible to hit. That was the 
moment when cool self-restraint and discipline on 
board the mystery ship counted. A good shot had 
been known to hit and demolish a submarine on the 
surface at that distance, but the chances were 
against a hit. If a shot were fired it could be but 
one, for it would instantly betray the nature of the 
ship, and the submarines would sink to safety. So 
it was the practice of the mystery crews to lie pa- 
tiently behind their frail concealment and bear the 
fire of the foe until she was convinced that no one 
was left aboard and would steam up for the cus- 
tomary looting. 

That took cool courage. It is one thing to stand 
a heavy fire behind breastworks that repel all save 
the luckiest of shots, but quite another to lie be- 
hind the flimsiest barrier of wood which would not 
stop the lightest shell. It is not difficult to brave 
death when one can fight back, and the red blood 
of battle runs hot in the veins. But to lie quiet 
under a pelting hail of lead and iron, to see such 
shelter as you have blazing around you, to know 



210 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

that the ship to which you are clinging in the hope 
of getting just one fair shot at the foe is all the time 
sinking under your feet — that is a class of service 
that requires a combination of courage, coolness 
and discipline that might be thought to be rare, but 
which was common enough among the men of the 
mystery fleet. 

Sometimes for hours men would lie thus, with 
the enemy in sight and deliberately pouring upon 
them a hail of deadly missiles. About them the 
shells crashed in explosions that racked the ship 
and sent thousands of deadly missiles flying about 
the decks. Their comrades fell fast, whole guns' 
crews being sometimes blotted out. Yet they lay, 
suffering but determined, watching the submarine 
as she circled about, ever coming nearer. The foe 
would be cautiously scrutinizing every inch and 
line of his victim for signs of danger. The captain 
of the Britisher for his part would be lying con- 
cealed on the deck, his eye at a hidden peephole, his 
mouth close to a speaking-tube, through which the 
word of command could be quickly passed to the 
crew lying breathless beside the hidden gun. 
Would the German come into direct range? Often 
the boats containing the refugees from the ship 
would prove the effective bait. Be sure they stayed 
so near the ship that if the enemy approached near 
enough to one of them to hail it she would give 
the coveted opportunity. As she crept nearer and 
nearer, or, if she had been reconnoitering from be- 
neath the surface, as the lengthening of the exposed 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 211 

part of her periscope told that she was rising, the 
suspense on the ship became tense. At last, she is 
exposed within a hundred yards. Low commands 
from the captain on the bridge have kept the gun's 
crew alert. The shell is in place, the breach-block 
locked. Comes now the shout which even the men 
on the submarine can hear: 

"LET GO!" 

Then the clumsy looking ocean tramp is trans- 
formed as by a miracle. The white naval ensign 
rises to the top of whatever mast may not be shot 
away. Down drop the bulwarks along the sides, 
lifeboats, crates, deckhouses all collapse revealing 
guns which are no sooner seen than they are heard, 
for their waiting crews spring into action and the 
seemingly helpless ship becomes a volcano spout- 
ing flame, and what is more to the purpose steel, 
and iron and lead for the destruction of the sub- 
marine that fate has delivered into their hands. A 
" sub " is but a shell. Before a short-range fire of 
that sort she flies to pieces like a crushed cocoon. 
Out of her shattered hulk fly the dismembered 
bodies of her crew. Quickly she begins to sink and 
soon disappears leaving great smudges of oil, and 
perhaps a few floating dead to mark her grave. 

And then the mystery ship gathers up her boats, 
patches up her wounded, buries her dead and 
steams back to port to refit and do it all over 
again. 

The mystery ships were credited with having 
sunk twelve submarines during the war, of which 



212 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

four were destroyed by Captain Gordon Campbell, 
who might well be called the " ace " of this trying 
service. In his ship, the Dunraven, Captain Camp- 
bell, with his heroic crew, once held on and waited 
while shells from a submarine practically blew off 
the whole stern of his boat, exploding a depth 
charge of three hundred pounds of high explosive, 
and setting the ship afire to the imminent menace 
of the greater store of explosives in her magazine. 
About the guns were hidden the little groups of 
devoted men whose duty it was to stay there until 
a shot could be had at the Hun. On the surface of 
the sea were floating the lifeboats that had put off 
in artfully designed panic at the first shot from the 
Hun. So carefully had panic been imitated that 
the first lifeboat to be launched was let go with a 
run, so that all its people were thrown into the sea. 
They were being picked up by their fellows while 
the concealed guns' crews left behind were watch- 
ing eagerly for the submarine to come within range. 
In this instance the enemy operated from the sur- 
face but at such a distance from the ship as to 
offer little opening for a fair shot. His own gun- 
nery, however, was fatally good. His sense that 
there was something wrong seemed phenomenally 
acute. The ship had been stopped. Her people — 
all of them so far as he could see — had taken to the 
boats, part of the vessel was in flames, and steam 
was pouring from artfully designed pipes intended 
to give the air of a pierced boiler. Yet the sus- 
picious German was still slow to approach. When 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 213 

at last he did come near a fatal change in the wind 
blew the smoke from that part of the Dunraven 
that was on fire in such a direction that it proved 
an efficient smoke screen for the enemy. Never was 
there worse luck. Captain Campbell could not tell 
how soon the fire on his ship might reach the maga- 
zine and send all sk^^ward in one grand explosion. 
But if he fired at random into the cloud of smoke 
that hid the foe, the chances are that he would miss 
and thereby disclose the character of his ship with- 
out injuring the enemy. At the risk of the lives of 
all on board he held on. But fate was against him. 
Just as the German was rounding the stern, and 
approaching the point at which she would be under 
the muzzles of three rifled cannon the fire reached 
the explosives at the Dunraven^s stern and with a 
mighty roar the ship blew up. The crew of one 
gun were blown high in air, and the surrounding 
atmosphere was filled with exploding shells. The 
character of the ship was at once exposed and in- 
stantly the submarine disappeared. 

That might have been thought to finish the job 
so far as that particular enemy was concerned, but, 
finding that his ship still floated despite serious 
injuries, Campbell refused to give up. So fright- 
ful were the wounds of his ship, which was still 
blazing fiercely, and so incredible was it that the 
men who had blown into the air should have 
escaped with their lives — as in fact they did — that 
he thought it probable that the Hun would come 
back to exult over a completely demolished victim. 



214 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

So he sent out a wireless message to all destroyers 
and other armed ships to keep outside a radius of 
thirty miles from the point at which the burning 
hulk lay. The appearance of a destroyer would 
of course put the enemy finally on his guard. Then 
a second " panic party," — those who were detailed 
to abandon ship were called — was organized, 
Jumped on a raft and the one remaining boat and 
rowed away. But there still remained a fighting 
gang on the ship. They could not work the guns, 
for these had been exposed to view in the excite- 
ment of the explosion, and any crew at them would 
be in full view of the foe at his periscope. But 
there were two uninjured torpedoes aboard, and 
these it was determined to employ on the enemy. 
In due time curiosity overcame the prudence of 
the Hun. His periscope appeared and came sneak- 
ing alongside the Dunraven. The torpedo was 
launched and missed by a few inches. Wholly 
oblivious to the attack, for a torpedo, however near, 
cannot be made out through a periscope, the " sub " 
went on to the other side of the ship. Then the 
second torpedo was let fly. Again a miss, by less 
than a foot. Then a great groan went up from the 
long-suffering crew. They had launched their last 
missile. Their ship was burning and sinking fast. 
Nothing was left but to save themselves, and the 
wireless began crackling with calls to the destroy- 
ers that had been kept at a distance. With the 
two British relief ships came the United States 
armed yacht Noma. The survivors were gathered 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 215 

up while the gallant old Dunraven went to the 
bottom. 

Though it failed in the effort to destroy the sub- 
marine this action rightly ranks as one of the most 
gallant of the war. In that fine spirit of " hands 
across the sea," which every one must wish will be 
strengthened and made enduring by our alliance in 
this war, Admiral Sims wrote to Captain Campbell 
a letter of compliment in the course of which he 
said: 

" According to my idea about such matters, the standard 
set by you and your crew is worth infinitely more than the 
destruction of a submarine. Long after we are both dust 
and ashes, the story of this last fight will be a valuable in- 
spiration to British (and American) naval officers and men 
— a demonstration of the remarkable degree to which the 
patriotism, loyalty, personal devotion and bravery of a crew 
may be inspired. I know of nothing finer in naval history 
than the conduct of the aftergun's crew — in fact, the entire 
crew of the Dunraven" 

The men of our navy made a gallant effort to get 
into the mystery ship game but fate and the sudden 
ending of the war denied them the opportunity. 
At the urgency of Admiral Sims the Admiralty as- 
signed them a ship which was named Santee, after 
the old sailing ship of that name the Admiral 
writes ; after the hulk lying at Annapolis to which 
cadets in disgrace were committed, is what the 
average navy man would say. Whatever the reason 



21G BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

for the name, the vessel was equipped as a mystery 
ship, her hull stuffed full of light wood so that she 
would tloat long after encountering the expected 
torpedo, and a crew of volunteers shipped under 
Commander David C. Hanrahan. The redoubtable 
Captain Campbell took a great interest in the ad- 
venture and helped to train the crew in the art of 
acting which is not treated of in the " Blue Jackets' 
Manual." After due training in the harbor of Bere- 
haven the Santee dropped out of Bantry Bay and 
made her way out to sea with the deliberate slouchi- 
ness of a typical old hooker. Promptly a subma- 
rine sighted her and slipped a torpedo fairly 
against her hull. With loud 'cries of distress the 
panic party went overboard, falling into the water, 
capsizing boats and generally deporting themselves 
as might be expected of seamen without naval 
training or experience in war might do. The ship, 
though showing a tremendous wound amidships, 
continued to float, being buoyed up by its cargo; 
the gun's crews left aboard crouched about their 
unseen cannon awaiting eagerly the sight of the 
submarine. But Fritz did not come. The men in 
the boats, after waiting around as long as might 
seem reasonable to an enemy bent to their oars and 
pulled slowly away. Still the eager watchers on 
the wounded ship vainly strained their eyes for the 
sight of a periscope. After some hours of watchful 
and fruitless waiting they gave up in despair and 
the Santee was towed back to port. Before she 
could be refitted the war was over. Thus America's 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 217 

share in the mystery ship campaign was brief and 
not glorious. 

At the beginning of the war it was not believed 
that submarines could be effectively hunted by sub- 
marines. The ancient adage, " set a thief to catch 
a thief," was thought to be without application in 
this particular case. It was urged that vision 
underwater from a submarine is as limited as from 
any other craft. But gradually it dawned upon the 
naval strategists that most of the time of a subma- 
rine is spent on the surface, and that our subma- 
rines, concealed under water, could steal upon a 
German U-boat on the surface as stealthily as the 
latter sneaks up underwater upon a merchantman. 
A submarine must spend much of its time on the 
surface because of the necessities of its power sys- 
tem. It has two sets of engines — electric engines 
by which it runs when submerged, and oil engines 
by which it is operated on the surface. Storage 
batteries are bulky and heavy. As a result the sub- 
marines could not carry enough of them to store 
" juice " for more than fifty hours' consecutive run- 
ning. When the storage batteries were exhausted 
the craft was obliged to seek the surface and there 
fill them again by running the dynamos with its 
oil engines. The oil engines, in turn, could not be 
run under water as they consumed oxygen too fast 
for the limited capacity of the boat. 

As a result the greater part of a submarine boat's 
activity is on the surface. For this reason scien- 
tists, anxious to secure precision in language, pre- 



218 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

fer to call them submersible boats. The German 
boats did most of their hunting on the surface, and 
indeed, except when a quarry was actually in sight, 
or they were in flight from an armed foe, kept the 
surface all the time. Conditions of prudence com- 
pelled them to economize their electrical power in 
every way, for the plight of a submarine, sub- 
merged in the presence of an enemy with her 
" juice " exhausted is a desperate one. She cannot 
hold her level without running her engines, unless 
it be that she is near enough to the bottom to rest 
there. And she cannot waste much power in feel- 
ing around for the bottom, for if the power is ex- 
hausted before she reaches a place of safety there 
is nothing left for her to do but to blow her ballast 
tanks, and come to the surface with the very excel- 
lent chance that the first part of her to be seen will 
be shot to pieces by a watchful destroyer. 

For this reason the greater part of the time of a 
U-boat was spent on the surface, steaming leisurely 
about and waiting for her prey. At the first sight 
of smoke on the horizon she submerged, leaving 
nothing but the almost invisible periscope above 
water. Even when running on the surface she was 
no such mark for the eye as the merchant ship, for 
as a rule little but her conning tower was exposed 
and that could hardly be discerned in the vast 
expanse of waters from a distance of over four 
miles. A merchantman would be easily visible at 
four times the distance, and even a destroyer would 
be in full view of the lurking U-boat long before the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 219 

latter could be seen from the bridge of the pursuer. 

But all these advantages for the U-boat over the 
merchantman or destroyer were transferred to the 
Allied submarine when it started in chase of the 
underwater enemy. For there were no surface war- 
ships hunting our subs. They were absolutely safe 
on the sea except from enemy submarines. To 
avoid them, or to discover them, they could stay 
submerged until the last resource of electric power 
had been exhausted and then come confidently to 
the surface to run their dynamos again. It was 
accordingly their strategy to cruise about sub- 
merged, at a speed of perhaps a mile an hour, 
which was enough to maintain the desired depth 
and yet most sparing of power, and from time to 
time raise their periscopes for a hasty survey of 
the horizon. An enemy submarine once discovered 
was very speedily subjected to the same sinister 
assault which it had been in the habit of launching 
against a merchant ship. No second torpedo was 
ever required for the destruction of a submarine. 
Its fragile sides could not resist much of a shock 
and it was built for sinking quite as much as float- 
ing. There was short shrift for ship or crew when 
a torpedo once struck. 

The hunt of the submarines for submarines was 
conducted on systematic principles. The hunters 
did not merely go out to sea at random and cruise 
about in the hope of encountering an enemy. Their 
hunting-ground was rigidly prescribed by the Ad- 
miralty. The sections in which the Germans were 



220 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

operating were well known — at this period in the 
English Channel, St. George's Channel off Queens- 
town, and the waters between Ireland and Scot- 
land. These sections of sea were divided up into 
" squares," and to each a submarine was detailed. 
Only in case of a chase could a submarine leave 
the square to which it had been assigned. 

A more dismal and monotonous duty than that 
which fell to the lot of the officers and crews of 
these cruising submarines can hardly be imagined. 
The ordinary period of duty was eight days and 
during that time the men were penned up for all 
the daylight hours in a narrow steel tube, packed 
with whirring machinery, stuffy with the odors of 
oil and of cookery, cold as the temperature of the 
surrounding sea, with an entire lack of any arti- 
ficial heat, and so damp that the moisture fairly 
dripped from the walls. Every man had a station 
and was virtually confined to that station all day 
for there could be no moving about at will lest 
the delicate equilibrium of the boat be impaired. 
We read about the stillness of the ocean's depths, 
but the subs seldom descended to those regions of 
eternal calm. The submarine has a roll all its own, 
and seasoned surface sailors have been known to be 
sick during its revolutions. The bunks were nar- 
row and sailors were frequently rolled out of them. 
The light was wearing on the eyes and the constant 
motion made reading difficult, while the whir of the 
machinery, so loud that orders had to be given with 
signals on a Klaxon, made any concentration of 




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BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 22t 

mind most difficult. For a brief period daily the 
men were permitted to smoke but it could not be for 
long. Oxygen was too precious to be wasted in 
combustion of tobacco, and often the air was so 
vitiated that only the most vigorous puffing would 
keep a cigarette going. Every nook and corner is 
occupied by something. In a submarine there is no 
such thing as vacant space. Their designers work 
and plan to find places to put something no bigger 
than a soap box. The three officers have shelf -like 
bunks and a small table for meals, but the men 
sleep in hammocks hung wherever space may be 
found, and eat off their knees. In fact, life is so 
miserable and wearing on one of these boats that 
the presence of sudden acute danger is rather wel- 
comed as a diversion which enables the men to for- 
get the discomfort. 

On the American submarines the chief danger 
was from friends rather than the enemy. German 
mines were indeed a very present menace, but there 
were no German surface ships to dread, and so far 
as the enemy submarines were concerned the 
chances were that our fellows would see them first. 
But there was constant danger lest our own ships, 
naval or merchant, might mistake our " subs " for 
Huns and attack them. Indeed this occurred in 
several instances. There was no way of telling the 
nationality of a submarine until it was entirely out 
of water and a timid merchant captain with a gun 
was liable to pop away at the conning tower, or to 
ram the rising hull without waiting to determine 



222 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

whether the mysterious stranger were friend or 
foe. 

Statistics as to the precise service accomplished 
by submarines against submarines are lacking. 
The claim is made that twenty U-boats were sent 
to their long account by other underwater craft. 
But the greatest service was in the effect produced 
upon the German morale by the activities of our 
underwater squadron. Before its creation the 
enemy U-boats had been reasonably safe, since they 
could always sight an enemy before it could sight 
them. This advantage was ended when we set sub- 
marines to hunting U-boats. It probably de- 
stroyed all the usefulness of the big cruising sub- 
marines of three thousand tons, with a length of 
three hundred feet and carrying six-inch guns 
which the Germans began building in the summer 
of 1917. They were big enough to keep the sea 
for two or three months, thus being able to cruise 
outside the zones in which convoys of destroyers 
protected the merchant fleets. Their guns were 
heavy enough to outrange those carried by the de- 
stroyers. The enemy had built about twenty of 
these vessels when the armistice was signed, but 
they had been little in evidence on the ocean. The 
only reason for this was that while they were of the 
very utmost value on a sea defended by surface 
boats only, they lost their advantage when con- 
fronted by submarines. They could not remain 
long submerged because of the amount of power 
required by their huge bulk. On the surface they 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 223 

were almost as visible as a good-sized merchant- 
man, and could not hope to remain immune on any 
stretch of sea in which our submarines were oper- 
ating. As a result they remained mainly in safe 
waters, and though they succeeded in capturing a 
few ships by virtue of their gun power, proved 
a decided disappointment to the German naval 
authorities. 

The enemy submarine was fought not only upon 
the surface of the sea and beneath it, but from 
the air above as well. Into the full story of the air 
service of the United States during the war I can- 
not go. The whole truth concerning that most 
colossal failure of our boasted American efl&ciency 
and inventiveness is not yet known. Enough is 
known, however, to make Americans ashamed that 
out of so huge an expenditure of money and of time 
— at a moment when time was more precious than 
money — so little should have come except scandal 
and waste. But the navy — the fighting organiza- 
tion of it — did accomplish no small service in the 
air, and was in shape to give an excellent account 
of itself when the sudden cessation of hostilities 
ended its activities. 

The growth of " the navy that flies " is thus sum- 
marized in the report of Secretary Daniels of 
December 8, 1918 : 

"The expansion of aviation in the navy has been of 
gratifying proportions and effectiveness. On July 1, 1917, 
naval aviation Avas still in its infancy. At that time there 



224 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

were only 45 naval aviators. There were officers of the 
Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard who had been given 
special training in and were attached to aviation. There 
were approximately 200 student officers under training, 
and about 1,250 enlisted men attached to the Aviation 
Service. These enlisted men were assigned to the three 
naval air stations in this country then in commission. 
Pensacola, Fla., had about 1,000 ; Bay Shore, Long Island, 
N. Y., had about 100 and Squantum, Mass. which was 
abandoned in the fall of 1917 had about 150 men. On 
July 1, 1918, there were 823 naval aviators, approximately 
2,052 student officers, and 400 ground officers, attached to 
naval aviation. In addition there were more than 7,300 
trained mechanics, and more than 5,400 mechanics in 
training. The total enlisted and commissioned personnel 
at this time was about 30,000." 

At the time of the armistice these figures needed 
further amendment. There were then in the avia- 
tion personnel more than forty thousand men, 
about equally divided between home and foreign 
stations. Of these 1,665 were qualified flying 
pilots. Coastal stations were established along the 
Atlantic seaboard and a regular patrol main- 
tained — a service for which the United States 
should always be prepared as in war time it may be 
of vital importance. We had great naval stations 
in Europe — twenty-seven of them in all, the largest 
being at Pauillac, France. Here were accommoda- 
tions for twenty thousand men, though it is need- 
less to say that no such number was ever housed. 
It was under command of Captain F. T. Evans and 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 225 

was equipped for the construction of airplanes on a 
large scale. The end of the war interfered with 
its activities in this direction, a fact that some 
people deplored as it would have been worth 
while seeing whether under the direct command of 
navy men the manufacture of planes at high pres- 
sure could have been conducted without the finan- 
cial scandals that attended the other efforts of the 
government to that end. Two air bases were also 
started in Italy for the purpose of attacking the 
Austrian naval bases, as from France we were at- 
tacking the German submarine nests at Ostend and 
Zeebrugge. But here again the close of the war 
prevented completion of the plans. 

It has been a matter of just pride to the navy 
that with its air service it really opened the war- 
time service of the United States in Europe, for 
a detachment of American naval airmen reached 
France and went into action three weeks before the 
first troopship brought an American soldier to 
European soil. They had been trained in the 
United States, some of them even taking up the 
study a year or more before the United States en- 
tered upon the war. A group of students at Yale, 
under the leadership of Trubee Davison, acting on 
their own initiative, formed a flying corps, estab- 
lishing training quarters at Port Washington, sup- 
plying their own material, paying all their own 
expenses and so thoroughly fitting themselves for 
the work of aviation that when the nation actually 
and belatedly went in they were ready at once for 



226 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

active service and formed the nucleus of the First 
Naval Reserve Flying Corps. All were enrolled 
in the navy — their names heading the lists. Many 
were detailed as instructors, both at home and 
aboard, and many did actual war service in the 
air. 

" I knew that whenever we had a member of that 
Yale unit," said Lieutenant-Commander Edwards, 
who was Aide for Aviation in the latter part of the 
war, " everything was all right. Whenever the 
British and the French asked us to send a couple of 
our crack men to reinforce a squadron I used to 
say, ' Let's get some of the Yale gang.' We never 
made a mistake when we did this." 

The largest naval training school for the would- 
be aviators of the Reserve was at Bayshore, L. I. 
It was a large plant amply equipped for its work, 
housing in all about 750 men, of whom about fifty 
were students, and discharging as trained about 
two pilots a day at the time of its greatest activity. 
Only those came to Bayshore who had had the pre- 
liminary ground training at other schools. Besides 
the actual technic of flying they were taught the 
use of the radio and the Morse code, photography, 
the mechanics of the engine and the machine gun, 
bombing, observing and map making. This was in- 
deed the drudgery of the training. The actual 
mastering of the plane was a comparatively simple 
feat. A writer on the Naval Reserve, Mr. Frank 
H. Potter, describes the methods of this training 
thus: 



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BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 227 

*' When a young aviator arrives at Bayshore he goes 
through the usual formalities of reporting, being assigned 
to his squadron, and so on, and is then taken out on a 
' pay hop,' ' hop ' be it known is Bayshore slang for a 
flight, and the ' pay ' means this : when a student has actu- 
ally begun his training in flying his pay is increased fifty 
per cent over the ordinary pay of his rank, and so his first 
flight is called a ' pay hop.' 

" At first the student aviator is taken up in a two-seated 
machine with an instructor. He is allowed to hold his 
hands on the controls but the steering is done by an in- 
structor. After the student gets some sense of balance he 
is permitted by degrees to steer himself. This continues 
for several days, the student being allowed to increase his 
control of the machine every day till the instructor thinks 
him able to begin ' solo ' work, that is flying by himself. 
The length of time which this first stage lasts will depend 
naturally on the adaptability of each pupil. In rare cases a 
man has been promoted to solo after only a couple 
of flights, but in most cases it means six to eight 
times of such flying with half an hour or more to each 
flight. 

" When the instructor thinks that his pupil is fit to fly 
alone the student is turned over to a second instructor who 
goes up with him in a two-seated machine, and who de- 
cides whether he shows sufficient proficiency to be pro- 
moted. After promotion begins the solo flying, in a 
single-seater, which generally lasts from thirty to forty 
hours by which time the young aviator should be proficient 
in ordinary, plain flying which is all that is taught at Bay- 
shore. Wlien this proficiency is attained the student is 
graduated from Bayshore and sent on to Pensacola where 
the stunts are taught — tail spins, vrille, loop-the-loop, and 



228 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

all the other maneuvers which he will need when he comes 
to fight the Hun." 

Out of the training given in the several naval 
schools were bred aviators who gave a good account 
of themselves in the little time left of the war. 
Indeed, aside from the work of navy aviators, the 
record of young America in the air, beginning long 
prior to our entrance upon the struggle was a glori- 
ous one. The record of the Lafayette Escadrille, 
organized by Americans in Paris during the early 
days of the war, is one of which every American 
may well be proud, and the boys who came later, 
wearing our own uniform, were hard put to it to 
maintain the reputation established by the gallant 
youths who risked, and in many instances, sacri- 
ficed their lives in aid of France before their 
own country had made up its mind to do its 
duty. 

One of the first of the navy fliers to meet death 
in combat was Ensign Stephen Potter. This young 
college man had been in active service only six 
weeks when he met his first foe in a duel — a Ger- 
man seaplane in Heligoland bight — and after a 
sharp fight brought it down in flames. Not long 
after he was out on scout duty for the British when 
he was overtaken by a force of seven German single- 
seaters. He was accompanied by another British 
machine. Although the two were two-seaters, each 
with a pilot and a gunner they were no match for 
the enemy, who came down upon them, two planes 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 229 

at a time. The official report of the battle is as 
follows : 

" Potter's companion had emptied one drum from the 
forward cockpit when the gun jammed. Two more hostile 
planes then appeared overhead, attacking vigorously. Both 
Britons turned to the west pursuing one of the lower enemy 
who was soon lost to view. Three others, passed astern, 
followed at a sharp angle. Potter was close above his 
companion, and dove to within a hundred feet of the 
water. 

" Both machines flattened out, and Potter's companion 
being faster, throttled down until Potter came abreast. 
They ran westward in this formation at full speed for 
several minutes under continuous volleys from the rear. 

" Four more enemy machines now appeared in V forma- 
tion. Of the seven Germans in attack four attacked Potter 
and the others engaged his companion. Potter fell behind 
and began to zigzag. He first veered slightly to starboard 
and then turned at right angles to port. 

" Again his companion throttled down to let him catch 
up, and began climbing to reduce headway. Potter dodged 
again but was then broadside to all enemy machines, and 
under their fire only fifty feet from the water. His com- 
panion flying above saw Potter's machine burst into flames, 
come down part of the way under control, then crash on 
the port wing-tip. 

" Potter was last seen on the surface amid flames that 
turned suddenly to a huge cloud of smoke." 

The records of the air service of the navy are 
full of instances of personal daring, of great risks 
encountered and overcome, of death met bravely 



230 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

in the pursuit of duty. Most of the men in the 
service were mere boys, many of them college 
undergraduates who had laid down their books in 
the midst of term to serve their country and civi- 
lization. One finds a certain disappointment in 
reading of their exploits in the fact that most of 
them were performed in British planes — for the 
United States did better in training aviators than 
in building machines for them to fly. The famous 
wreck in which Ensign E. A. Stone, U.S.N., nearly 
lost his life, being rescued after floating in a broken 
plane for nearly eighty hours on turbulent sea was 
the wreck of a British seaplane which he was at the 
time piloting. 

There is a feeling, not wholly without justifica- 
tion, that aerial service over the sea is less perilous 
than over land. To some extent this is true. The 
sea offers a readier temporary refuge in case that 
an aviator is compelled by engine trouble to vol- 
plane down to safety. It is not studded with 
woods, ravines, rocky places or crowded cities mak- 
ing landing impossible. But once on solid land the 
aviator is safe. Even if he succeeds in reaching the 
surface of the water with his seaplane his troubles 
have but begun. For the seaplane is not a sea- 
worthy craft. On a very ordinary swell it speedily 
racks itself to pieces. The broad wings catch the 
roll of the swells and pull the structure this way 
and that until it becomes a mere mass of wreck- 
age on the waters. 

Stone was acting as pilot of a British seaplane 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 231 

with a British sub-lieutenant as gunner, and out on 
patrol in the Channel. They sighted a periscope 
and started out in pursuit of it, but while on the 
chase their engine dropped dead and they were 
forced to volplane down to the surface of a rough 
sea. They had no radio aboard, but, like all cruis- 
ing planes, carried two carrier pigeons. To the legs 
of these birds they tied scraps of tissue paper, giv- 
ing latitude, and longitude and the significant word 
" sinking." One bird flew straight away with its 
message, but the other one, seemingly dazed, or per- 
haps terrified by the expanse of water, refused to 
leave the plane, and perched on the tip of its wing. 
By way of ousting him they threw a navigation 
clock — the only thing movable at hand — at him 
which apparently frightened him still more, for 
though he disappeared he never reached home. 

A seaplane afloat on the waves, when the sea is 
at all rough, goes to pieces rapidly and the great 
weight of the engine tends to draw her down. In 
this case the seas beating against the covering of 
the wings were fast battering the light fabric to 
pieces. The two castaways got out their knives and 
cut away the cloth as far as possible, but she con- 
tinued sinking by the stern until she finally rose 
perpendicularly in the sea, and they had to climb 
over her nose and cling to the bottom of the pon- 
toons. As far as they could see was nothing but 
gray and tossing water. They were but a speck in 
the waste with no way of making their plight 
known. There was no place to lie down, to stretch 



232 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

themselves, or to relieve in any way their strained 
and cramped muscles. Now and then they had the 
trying experience of seeing a ship go by in the dis- 
tance without possessing any means of attracting 
her attention. Hours passed into days — in all they 
were four days on the tossing ocean. They had 
neither food nor drink. Their emergency ration 
was in the observer's seat in the back, but when 
they remembered this and sought to get it the 
equilibrium of the wreck was such that to climb 
back to that point would have pulled the whole 
fabric under. Not only had they to starve with the 
knowledge that within ten or fifteen feet was food 
in sufficiency, but every now and then they saw 
tins of biscuit from torpedoed ships drifting by, 
but were too weak and chilled to swim for them. 
. One tin that they did manage to pull in when 
opened proved to contain tobacco — a cruel dis- 
appointment. 

Once they had the bitter experience of seeing a 
seaplane fly over their heads, not more than eight 
hundred feet up. It flew past despite their cries 
for aid, went on about two miles, and came back 
directly over them. It gave every indication of 
being in search of them, but its observers failed to 
pick them out of the welter of water. 

Their rescue finally came through a trawler 
which sighted them but hesitated about approach- 
ing lest it be a trap of the Germans. When they 
actually reached their home station they learned 
that every machine from their home base, and sev- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 223 

eral from a French station, had been flying over the 
Channel for three days looking for them. 

The work of our naval aviators was mainly in 
patrolling, and in assisting in the convoy of mer- 
chantmen. Not only did the elevated position of 
the observer in a plane give him a great advantage 
in discerning a conning tower or even a periscope 
in the distance, but submerged subs were not infre- 
quently made out from the air. Every boy knows 
that standing on a bridge and looking down into 
the water one can frequently see fish that are en- 
tirely invisible from the shore. From a seaplane a 
submarine steaming along thirty or forty feet 
below the surface could frequently be clearly dis- 
cerned. Like giant fish-hawks the seaplanes circled 
about over the submarine-infested areas seeking in- 
cessantly for their prey. Unlike the bird they did 
not drop bodily to the water on sighting a victim, 
but dropped a depth bomb instead. According to 
Admiral Sims of thirty-nine direct attacks made 
upon submarines from the air ten were in varying 
degrees successful. He cites as an instance of the 
" hard luck " which may attend the most skillful 
endeavors the exploit of Ensign J. McNamara, 
who dropped a bomb from high in air so accurately 
that it struck fair in the middle of the conning 
tower of the target. Under normal conditions one 
submarine with her whole crew would have been 
sent to their long account. But the bomb proved 
to be a dud, and rolled harmlessly off into the 
water, the sub continuing her way probably wholly 



234 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

unaware of the incident. It may be noted that not 
only is there no possible defense against aerial at- 
tack upon a submarine, but when the threatened 
boat is running submerged her commander is 
wholly unaware of the menace, since the periscope 
is available for surface observation only and dis- 
cerns nothing more than a few feet above the 
horizon. 

It is reasonable to anticipate that the next war, 
if one shall unhappily come, will be fought very 
largely from the air. It is to be feared too that 
more than ever before it will be a war in which non- 
combatants will suffer almost as much as the en- 
rolled military and naval forces. The development 
toward the close of this war, in United States fac- 
tories, of a type of poison gas one bombful of 
which dropped from an airplane would depopulate 
half a square mile in a crowded city affords some 
hint of the terrors in store for humanity, unless 
statesmanship is able to devise some way of mak- 
ing war impossible. And until that device is per- 
fected it behooves the United States to be prepared 
in every way to ward off attack by sea and sky. 

Our national energy enabled us to make a reason- 
ably good showing toward the end of the war, but 
it must be remembered that we were engaged with 
an enemy who could not by any possibility attack 
our coasts. Had he been able to do so, with his 
admitted superiority in aircraft, there would have 
been a sorry story to tell. As it is the record of 
our accomplishment sounds impressive. When the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 235 

armistice was signed we had 225 American air- 
planes operating over the North Sea, the Irish Sea, 
the Adriatic and the Bay of Biscay. We had bomb- 
ing planes at work over the battlefields of Flanders. 
And in our " navy that flies " there were fifteen 
thousand men engaged in hunting submarines, 
bombing bases, patrolling, convoying and observ- 
ing. The total personnel was increased during the 
war to nearly fifty thousand men, and the casual- 
ties suffered in the naval air service amounted to 
two hundred and eight. 

Like every other factor in our national defense 
the naval aviation service was subjected to severe 
pruning immediately peace had been declared. 
The personnel was ordered cut to five thousand, at 
which figure it will presumably be maintained. 
The twenty-five bases in Europe were of course 
abandoned, and all ground schools in the United 
States except that at Great Lakes are closed. The 
Department's peace programme calls for the main- 
tenance of six heavier than air coastal stations in 
permanence, and the obvious utility of these for 
other than warlike purposes gives reason to be- 
lieve that they will be supported by Congress. 

One triumph of naval aviation succeeded the 
war, although the initial steps for it were taken 
in the earlier days of that conflict. 

May 26, 1919, a huge flying boat displaying the 
Stars and Stripes appeared off the harbor of Lisbon 
where a great throng awaited its coming. It was 
the successful conclusion of the first transatlantic 



236 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

flight, and had been accomplished by a flying boat 
of the United States navy, manned by a navy crew 
and commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Albert 
C. Read, U.S.N. 

The ship was the ^C-Jj, one of four machines 
the planning and construction of which had been 
begun by the Navy Department as long before as 
September, 1917. Three of these great machines, 
which were equipped with Liberty motors, had a 
lifting capacity of twenty-five thousand pounds, 
and had been tested out carrying fifty-one pas- 
sengers, were given the task of crossing the ocean 
from Nova Scotia with but one stop — at the Azores. 
The three left the Rockaway naval station, on Long 
Island, and coasted along to Halifax whence the 
final start was to be made. After tuning up, the 
three made what aviators have come to call the 
" hop-off " on the 16th of May. In fuel and food 
they were carrying all the load their power per- 
mitted. All along the route destroyers and cruisers 
w^ere stationed, their wireless men alert for news of 
the coming of the great birds, their lookouts all 
eyes for the first visible sign of their approach. The 
three airships sped along through rain and shine, 
clouds and fair weather. Sometimes they were 
within sight of each other, sometimes clouds 
blocked their sight but the roar of their powerful 
engines kept them in touch. They steered of course 
by compass, but every little while the sight of 
a destroyer below, or the gleam of a star-shell sent 
up from one of these patrols, sometimes fifty miles 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 237 

away, gave assurance that they were on their right 
course. All of the flyers were equipped with radio 
apparatus and could thus keep in touch with their 
guides. They had before them at the outset a 
straightaway flight of 1,380 miles over stormy 
waters and the knowledge that they could at all 
times summon aid and guidance must have been a 
material comfort. 

Fog, the most dangerous enemy of all navigators 
whether by sea or sky, enveloped all three ships 
after they had been ten or twelve hours in the air, 
and just as all the pilots were feeling confident of 
success. The lSlC-1 was forced to give up her flight 
and descend to the water. She lay there pounding 
in heavy seas, with her crew working desperately 
to keep her afloat until sighted by the steamer 
Ionia. The officers and crew were taken off and the 
craft soon sunk. The 1^0-3, was little more fortu- 
nate. She was forced down at a point about thirty- 
five miles from Fayal. The Secretary of the Navy 
tells the story of her failure thus : 

" When the NC-3, caught in the fog, descended to the 
water, she encountered heavy seas. Rain squalls occurred 
during the night and the next morning she had to face a 
gale. Destroyers were searching for her, but her radio 
: apparatus failed, and she could not flash them her loca- 
\ tion. After tossing on the ocean for a day and night, the 
j morning of May 18 her port wing pontoon was suddenly 
1 carried away, and men had to be placed on the star- 
board wing to keep the port wing clear of the water. The 
high seas soon afterwards began to break the ribs of the 



238 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

lower plane and split the fabric. A steep wave lifted 
the bow and forced under the water the lower elevator, 
which began to disintegrate and was finally swept off. The 
cables of the sea anchors parted. The hull was leaking 
badly, and the pumps had to be kept going. 

" The sun came out and the top of Mount Pico was 
sighted, showing that land was only 35 miles away. But 
the 60-mile wind and heavy seas made hopeless any attempt 
to reach Pico, and it was decided to endeavor to work 
toward San Miguel. Taking advantage of every lull in the 
waves and making a course slightly across the wind, by the 
use of ailerons and rudder, some progress was made, in- 
creasing as the pilots gained experience in this untried navi- 
gation. The heavy wind and seas continued throughout the 
night, and by daylight practically nothing was left of the 
lower wings except the beams, heavy wings between struts 
and the starboard wing pontoon. 

" Early in the morning San Miguel was sighted, and the 
course was changed toward Ponta Delgada. When 7 miles 
off the harbor the plane was sighted from shore and thirteen 
minutes later the destroyer Harding came into sight, stand- 
ing out at full speed. Her offer of assistance was refused, 
the NC-3 proceeding under her own power. A few minutes 
later a cross-sea swept off the starboard pontoon, which, 
dragging in the water, almost capsized the seaplane. But 
by keeping men ready to run out on the wings and using 
the three available engines, the ISfC-S taxied to her mooring, 
reaching Ponta Delgada at 4 : 50 p.m., having been on the 
water for 53 hours, drifting and taxiing 209 miles in the 
endeavor to reach port. Officers and crew had suffered 
hunger as well as other hardships, for their sandwiches 
had fallen in the bilge when the plane descended, and the 
crew subsisted almost entirely upon a few cakes of choeo- 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 239 

late, as the emergency rations created extreme thirst, and 
the radiator water, all they had left to drink, was very 
unpalatable. But the aviators were in good spirits, in spite 
of their distressing experiences." 

The two ships that failed had come within half 
an hour's run of their destination. But fate inter- 
vened to snatch from them the prize. The winner, 
which at the outset had seemed to be less fortunate 
than the others, made the emergency stop at Horta, 
waited there four days for better weather condi- 
tions, and then put off on the last leg of 891 miles 
to Lisbon. This distance she covered in 9 hours, 
43 minutes. After an enthusiastic reception at 
Lisbon, she continued her flight to Plymouth, Eng- 
land, the port whence our Pilgrim Fathers had 
sailed for America. It seemed a fitting thing that 
so soon after the close of the great war in which 
English and Americans had fought side by side 
the first man to cross the Atlantic by air should 
pay his devoirs at this shrine of all Anglo- 
Americans. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Fear of German submarine raids. — Chance for enemy enterprise. — 
Eaids on American shipping. — Sinking of the Edward S. 
Cole and the Hattie Dunn. — Prisoner on a submarine. — Ex- 
tent of ravages along our coast. — The gallant fight of the 
Luckenback. 

When the United States had determined to play 
its part among nations and enter upon the war for 
the defense of civilization against the aggressions 
of the Hun there was for a time some apprehension 
lest our coastwise shipping and even seaport towns 
might suffer. For this there was some excuse. The 
German merchant submarine, Deutschland, had 
made two visits to our coasts eluding the British 
patrols, and not detected by any of our armed 
vessels — though to be sure at the time of her voy- 
ages the latter were not particularly concerned 
with the movements of German craft. The U-5S 
too, had made its memorable visit to Newport and 
had exercised its destructive power upon enemy 
and neutral vessels within sight of a band of our 
destroyers. 

It was apparent therefore that if the German 
Admiralty chose it might send submarines to our 
Atlantic seaboard, raise havoc with our coastwise 
shipping, and even slip up close enough to some 
of our harbors to send a shot or two into our cities. 

240 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 241 

Such a vessel as the Deutschland could readily 
have mounted a six-inch gun, and have come within 
easy shelling distance of any one of half a dozen 
seaports on our Atlantic coast. As a fact the Ger- 
mans had at that time begun building their sub- 
mersible cruisers, any one of which might have 
undertaken such an adventure with every certainty 
of wreaking wide damage and spreading panic 
here, and with at least an even chance of escaping 
after the raid had been completed. 

It is impossible to study the history of this great- 
est of all wars without reaching the conclusion that 
something in the German character unfitted that 
people from seafaring dash and adventure. That 
so magnificent a fleet as theirs should have been 
doomed to rust in ignoble inactivity throughout a 
war which the German people were told was for 
national existence would be unbelievable if it were 
not history. And that they should have left un- 
tried the opportunity to raid one or two American 
seaport towns is almost equally incredible. Even 
if the submarine paid for its audacity by going to 
the bottom with all on board a few cannon shot 
dropped into even our smaller towns like Portland, 
Me., Portsmouth, New London, Atlantic City or 
Charleston would have caused such a diversion of 
the United States navy from its work in European 
waters as would have been of incalculable benefit to 
the Germans. We have seen how vital to the very 
continuance of England's part in the war was the 
work of the convoys in which our navy took a lead- 



242 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ing part. If it had been summoned back to home 
waters none can tell what the result might have 
been. 

Nor is it at all certain that such a raid might 
not have inflicted serious damage upon the Ameri- 
can town attacked without the loss of the assailing 
force. If there had been in the German navy any 
of that spirit that animated Paul Jones when, with 
a mere handful of men, he made his descents upon 
Whitehaven and St. Mary's Island; if they had 
been fired by the courage and dash that Decatur 
showed when he led his men into the harbor of 
Tripoli and destroyed the Philadelphia under the 
guns of the Bashaw's palace; if in the German 
veins had flowed that red fighting blood that pulsed 
in the arteries of the English sailors who climbed 
the mole at Zeebrugge and cleaned out that nest of 
submarines — then indeed might some American 
city have heard the sound of shells bursting in its 
streets and known how Paris felt under the fire of 
the German long-range gun. 

To some extent an attack of this sort by the 
enemy was anticipated at the outset of the war. 
Nets were stretched across the Narrows to keep 
submarines out of New York harbor, and for the 
entire period of the conflict vessels were not per- 
mitted to enter or to leave between sunset and sun- 
rise. A few destroyers and a number of submarine 
chasers were kept cruising up and down the coast, 
while merchant skippers and the infrequent yachts- 
men of war time were seeking periscopes by the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 243 

score. But the Germans were slow in coming. At no 
time during the war did the apprehended attack on 
a seaport occur. That apparently never suggested 
itself to the German Admiralty. It was fortunate 
for us for at that time the series of aviation stations 
which were devised for the protection of the coast 
had not been established. It would be difficult to 
overestimate the importance to our national de- 
fense of such a series of stations. The normal 
speed of airplanes being well in excess of eighty 
miles an hour and of blimps and larger dirigibles 
almost as great, it is evident that with observation 
stations along the coast at intervals of say two hun- 
dred miles no point would be more than an hour 
or so of emergency steaming from help by the air. 
With swift destroyers to follow the speedier air- 
ships the response in case of a sudden alarm would 
be too speedy to permit an enemy to make a very 
serious attack and escape. 

Whatever the opportunity may have been for the 
enemy he did not seize it. No American port ever 
heard the sound of a German gun and no hostile 
shell ever burst in one of our streets. Such activi- 
ties as the enemy's navy manifested on our coast 
were confined to sinking merchant ships — a sort 
of inglorious warfare to which the famous navy of 
von Tirpitz was in the main confined. 

It was in May, 1918, that the work of the enemy 
began to be felt among the shipping on our Atlantic 
coast. Whether there was but one submarine or 
a group of them was not known, indeed has not yet 



244 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

been learned, but in a little less than a month 
twenty steamers and sailing ships, mostly of Ameri- 
can register, had been sent to the bottom. 

Our naval authorities had been warned. The 
British Intelligence Department, with that singu- 
lar skill in detective work which amazed the world, 
had notified our naval authorities that two German 
cruising submarines believed to be of the improved 
type with a cruising radius of ten thousand miles, 
and carrying two guns of four- or five-inch caliber 
had left the North Sea. There was every reason to 
anticipate that they were headed westward for a 
raid on our coasts. While the danger was kept 
locked in the secrecy of the Navy Department, all 
of our armed vessels in west Atlantic waters were 
instructed to look out for the raiders. But the 
ability of the submarine to evade detection had its 
fullest illustration at this time, for not a single 
armed ship which was searching for the enemy dis- 
covered him, while he for his part had no difficulty 
in finding plenty of our unarmed vessels for his 
prey. 

The first news of action by these new invaders 
was brought to New York City on June 4th by 
Captain Newcomb of the American four-masted 
schooner, Edward S. Cole. This vessel, when about 
fifty miles southeast of Barnegat, N. J., was sud- 
denly confronted by a submarine which was de- 
scribed as being about two hundred feet long with 
five feet free board and carrying two three-inch 
guns fore and aft, and a rapid fir t amidships. The 




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BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 245 

mate of the Cole, who first discovered the unwel- 
come stranger, thought that it was merely an 
American submarine with naval reserve men 
aboard who were trying to frighten a Yankee skip- 
per. He thought he would join in the game, and 
so, as he put it, " In order to have a little fun with 
our captain who had turned in for a nap in his 
cabin, I yelled down the skylight, ^ Tumble up on 
deck lively. Cap, there's a big submarine close 
astern getting ready to attack us.' Then I took the 
marine glasses and looked through them at the 
stern of the U-boat, where her ensign was flapping 
limply against the short flagstaff. For a moment 
or two I could not make out her nationality, and 
then a gust of wind came and blew the ensign 
straight so that I could see that it was the German 
flag, and then I shouted in earnest to Captain New- 
comb, * It's no joke this time. By gosh, she is a 
German submarine! ' " 

The visitor promptly showed her quality by giv- 
ing the crew of the Cole ten minutes to leave her 
and then placing bombs in her hull exploded them, 
sending her to the bottom in a few moments. 

Only a few days later boats were picked up by a 
coastwise steamer containing a number of men who 
were the survivors of several schooners that had 
been sunk by the submarine, as well as of the tank 
steamer, Isabel Wiley. The crews of the schooners 
had been taken aboard the U-boat and held pris- 
oners, until the destruction of the tanker gave the 
Hun more guests than he could accommodate, when 



246 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

all were bundled into the Wiley^s boats and set 
adrift. 

Captain Charles E. Holbrook, master of the 
Maine schooner, Hattie Dunn, told his story of the 
destruction of his ship and his own brief captivity 
in this fashion : 

" We left N'ew York for Charleston in ballast on May 23. 
Two days later we were about fifteen miles south of Winter 
Quarter light-ship, bowling along under an eight-knot 
breeze. I heard a shell pass near the vessel. Then another 
shell, which fell perhaps a quarter of a mile away. I was 
•not taking much notice because I believed the vessel, which 
I saw about two miles away, was an American submarine 
at target practice. A third shell exploded close by us on 
the weather quarter and I knew that whoever it was wanted 
us to stop. I brought the vessel up into the wind. 

** The submarine, with her superstructure and conning- 
tower showing plainly above the water, came within two 
hundred yards, and I saw that she was flying the two code 
letters, ' A. B.,' meaning ' Stop immediately.' 

" From a small staff at the rear end of the super- 
structure fluttered a small flag of the Imperial German 
Navy. An oflicer and three men came over in a small 
boat, not over twelve feet long, and in perfect English the 
officer told us to get into our boats and that we had but ten 
minutes allotted to us to get clear of our vessel. 

" They placed bombs along the sides of our vessel and 
blew her up immediately, in the meantime putting an 
armed German sailor on board the small boat, in which 
were seven men and myself. This did not give me time to 
rescue my personal effects and nautical instruments, and so 
I lost them all. My men saved only what they stood in. 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 247 

" Perhaps I would have been given more time if the 
commander of the submarine had not seen the Hauppauge 
under full sail about four or five miles away. Like us, the 
Hauppauge was light and, I understand, bound from Port- 
land to Newport News. The U-boat destroyed Captain 
Sweeney^s fine new schooner after ordering him and his 
crew to take to their boats, and within a half-hour both 
crews were on board the submarine and both the small 
boats had been placed on the submarine's deck and lashed 
down. 

*' We were kept below for several hours, until the sub- 
marine picked up Captain Gilmore and the Edna, at four 
o'clock in the afternoon. Then, I guess, the commander 
thought he had done a good day's work, for he was in 
excellent humor, and told us captains that we could go 
on deck and have a smoke. He did not extend liberty to 
the others that day, but later they got their chance once in 
a while." 



The Maine skipper was a good sailor man, but 
he did not like his brief experience on a submarine. 
A good schooner and the surface of the sea for him. 
He declared that the U-boat submerged several 
times when he was aboard and at one occasion it 
came to rest on the bottom of the ocean where he 
ate his dinner. The experience did not improve 
his appetite. It had evidently been the intention 
of the captain of the U-boat to set his prisoners free 
at an early opportunity, for he lashed their boats 
to his deck as if intending to use them later. But 
the pressure of the water when he submerged 
smashed them to fragments. The prisoner was 



248 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

much puzzled by the continual working of the wire- 
less outfit of the submarine. They were more than 
three thousand miles from the nearest German 
wireless station. There were no German ships 
afloat on the ocean. With whom could they have 
been talking? Dark suspicions of German spies 
ashore haunted his mind. " There were times when 
I could hear them using their wireless," he said. 
*^ One night the spluttering was so loud it woke me 
up. They were sending messages either to another 
ship or to some shore station. Every night the 
operators listened to press bulletins sent out from 
America, and one of them told me of the battle 
drive now on in France. They also said that a 
Whitehead torpedo factory had been blown up in 
Austria last week." 

The German may have been one of the monster 
cruising submarines of which we have been told, 
but he did not despise small game. The schooner 
Edna, Captain Gilmore with a crew of six men, met 
him on the voyage from Philadelphia to Cuba. 
Captain Gilmore lost his ship at the hands of the 
enemy on whose boat he was held captive for a 
week or more. But to judge from his report of his 
treatment he not only bore no malice, but thought 
his captor 

"... The mildest manner'd man 
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat/' 

In his account of the destruction of his ship he 
said: 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 249 

"The submarine came right up to us. The small boat 
was lowered and an officer came aboard, telling me, *You 
have ten minutes in which to abandon ship.' When I was 
telling the men how to get the boat, which was lashed on 
the deck, clear, the lieutenant told me to come below. 

" I suppose I acted as if I was in a hurry to get away 
from the ship, but when we got below the lieutenant said: 
' Don't get excited, captain. Take your time. We'll be 
around here an hour and a half.' So I picked up every- 
thing I could think of that belonged to me, and when I got 
over to the submarine I found I'd left my new silk umbrella. 
After they blew up the schooner the Germans rowed back 
to the submarine, and I found that besides the few things 
they had picked up for themselves, they had brought my; 
umbrella." 

After this considerate treatment the Yankee cap- 
tain and his crew were taken aboard the submarine. 
Of his experience there, Captain Gilmore added : 

" The officers of the submarine included a spare captain 
who was apparently on hand to take charge of any prize 
that might be worth while turning into a raider, the com- 
mander of the U-boat itself and two others. These gave 
up their berths to me and the master of the Hattie Dunn, 
and the Germans of the crew gave up their bunks to the 
sailors and slept in hammocks themselves. The officers 
gave us wine, cordials and fine cigars and in general 
treated us with such marked hospitality that it seemed 
apparent that they were carrying out a course which had 
been laid upon them. The commander said that he had 
fuel and supplies for a month in American waters and 
intended to stay here for that time before going back." 



250 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

It is wholly probable as the shrewd Yankee skip- 
per surmised that the commander of this submarine 
had been ordered to treat his involuntary guests 
with courtesy and even hospitality. His action in 
this regard was in marked contrast to the attitude 
of the commanders of U-boats in European waters 
who did not scruple to turn their guns on the small 
boats containing refugees from the vessels they had 
sunk or even to run them down. Probably the 
reason for this friendliness to individual Ameri- 
cans was the same that explains the failure of the 
Germans to raid any of our seaport towns, or to 
make savage attacks on our loaded transports. It 
is impossible not to conjecture that from the mo- 
ment the United States entered upon the war it 
was the policy of the German government to avoid 
as much as possible stimulating any more hatred 
of Germany in the American mind than could be 
helped. They might "strafe" England, but with 
Americans their methods of warfare were as nearly 
humane as war can be made. It was obviously 
done with shrewd political foresight and purpose. 

The largest ship to fall before the assault of this 
unidentified enemy was the five thousand-ton pas- 
senger steamer Carolina, belonging to the New 
York and Porto Rico Steamship Line, although 
the Herbert L. Pratt, of seventy-two hundred tons 
was attacked but not sunk. Passengers and crew of 
the Carolina numbered 331, all of whom were put 
into boats prior to the sinking of the ship. Owing 
to a heavy storm which overtook them before they 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 251 

could reach the coast a motor launch carrying 
twenty-six overturned, and seven of its passengers 
were drowned. All of the remainder were picked 
up by passing merchant vessels. In all, twenty 
ships were sunk in this raid, three of which were 
Norwegian and therefore neutral. The apparent 
cruising radius of the enemy was along the coast 
between Chesapeake Bay within possibly one hun- 
dred miles of New York. Destroyers, submarine 
chasers and aeroplanes were sent out in great num- 
bers to locate the enemy but without success and 
no vessel ever saw her and escaped to bring the 
report home. 

An incident of the submarine campaign that did 
not occur on our coast is so illustrative of the 
methods employed to beat off the enemy that it may 
well be told here. It describes in graphic form the 
way in which the patrolling destroyers picked out 
of the air the cries of a ship set upon the enemy, 
how they sped to the attack, and how in at least 
one case American dash, courage and seamanship 
overcame the Hun. 

It was early in October that the wireless men on 
the destroyers that were convoying a large fleet of 
British merchantmen to the east coast of England 
suddenly plucked from the air messages telling of 
the distress of an American ship. So far as the eye 
could see all was peaceful. But the air currents 
which throughout the war teemed with news 
flashed from hundreds of radios told that ninety 
miles away the American ship, J. L. Luckenhack, 



S52 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

iwas being shelled by a submarine. In the official 
reports the story is told in this brief dialogue 
flashed through the air and noted down by the 
radio men : 

"8:50 A.M. S. 0. S. J. L. Luckenhack being gunned 
iby submarine. Position 48.08 N. 9.31 W. 

" 9 :35 Conyngham to Nicholson. Proceed to assistance 
of S. 0. S. ship. 

" 9 :30 Luckenback to U. S. A. : Am maneuvering around. 

" 9 :35 Luckenback to U. S. A. : How far are you away ? 

" 9 : 40 Luckenhack to U. S. A. : Code books thrown 
overboard. How soon will you arrive? 

"Nicholson to Luckenback: In two hours. 

" 9 : 41 Luckenback to U. S. A. : Look for boats. They 
are shelling us. 

"Nicholson to Luckenback: Do not surrender! 

"Luckenback to Nicholson: Never! 

''11:01 Nicholson to Luckenback: Course south mag- 
netic. 

" 12 :36 P.M. Nicholson to Conyngham: Submarine 
Bubmerged 47.47 N. 10.00 W. at 11 : 20. 

" 1 :23 Conyngham to Nicholson: What became of 
steamer ? 

"3:41 Nicholson to Admiral (at Queenstown) and 
Conyngham: Luckenback now joining convoy. Should be 
able to make port unassisted." 

The Luckenhack was in fact saved by the cour- 
age and pertinacity of her commander who refused 
to surrender even though he knew there was grave 
doubt as to whether aid would arrive in season. 
Pistant ninety miles when the first S.O.S. call wa§ 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 253 

received, the destroyers put on their forced draft, 
pushed up their speed and made all possible haste 
to the scene of the attack. Thirty miles an hour is 
about the best speed that a destroyer can main- 
tain for any length of time, and as a result the sub- 
marine had nearly tliree hours in which to work her 
will upon the helpless merchantman. It will be 
noticed from the report of the messages that the 
first news of the attack was received at ten minutes 
of nine, while the moment at which the submarine 
abandoned the attack was twelve thirty-six p.m. 
Had the enemy been willing to use a torpedo on the 
Luckenltack he could undoubtedly have destroyed 
her. But at this period of the war the Germans 
were very saving of their torpedoes, which had be- 
come difficult to obtain. As it was, the time was 
ample for the destruction of the vessel by shell- 
fire except for what was obviously the poor gunnery 
of the enemy. When aid arrived the Luckenhack 
was on fire and her cargo of cotton in flames. She 
w^as, however, in sufficiently good shape to be towedv 
into port. The commander of the Nicholson, who 
effected the rescue, reports that the submarine sub- 
merged after his first shot. Oddly enough the 
destroyer had hardly rejoined its convoy when one 
of the ships, the Orama, was destroyed by a tor- 
pedo from an unseen submarine. It was thought to 
be wholly probable that this was the same under- 
water boat that had attacked the Luckenback. 



CHAPTER IX 

The men of the Marine Corps. — " Devil Dogs " or " Leather- 
Necks." — An historic record of daring. — Character of the 
men. — Nature of their training. — Their heavy losses. — The 
great German drive. — Marines at Chateau-Thierry. — The 
battle of Belleau Wood. — A personal narrative. — Nature of 
the terrain. — Fighting tactics of the Marines. — Report of 
Secretary Daniels. — Sergeants John Quick and Dan Daly. 

At sea the true blue jacket rather sniffs at the 
marine, calls him " soldier " or " leather-neck," and 
looks on him somewhat in the light of a policeman 
— which was in fact the marine's original function 
in all navies. But these soldiers of the sea have 
won for themselves a reputation for ready effective- 
ness and gallantry in all services, and not least of 
all in our own. Kipling called the British marine 

"... her Majesty's Jollies 
Soldier and sailor too.'' 

In our own service they have come to be called 
" devil dogs." 

Just how the name originated seems to be lost 
to tradition, but the title appeals to the men of the 
corps and right gloriously they live up to it. They 
form a small corps, but insist that they are the 
^lite of the nation's armed service. They have 
pride of antiquity, for while they are under control 

254 



I 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 255 

of the Secretary of the Navy the foundation of their 
corps antedates that of the Navy Department itself. 
They are as cosmopolitan as the fleet, and the in- 
finite variety of their service cannot perhaps be 
better told than in the words of one of their own 
poets : 

" They've fought with Tripolitan pirates 
They've handed the English a few, 
They've bowed the proud necks of the Spanish 
and Mex, 
And they've walloped the Chinaman too. 
They've reasoned with Zulu and Malay, 
They've fought in our own Civil War, 
And they've had a few scraps with the little 
brown Japs, 
And with Gu-gus way out in Samar." 

But the story of the historic services of the 
United States Marine Corps, and of the quiet ef- 
fectiveness that has given the dispatch, " The 
marines were landed and have the situation well in 
hand," all the force of an accepted formula is an- 
other story.* Here I shall tell only of what they 
did in the service of civilization in the great World 
War — and tell that in a chapter though the telling 
might well fill a volume. 

When the Declaration of War was signed the 
Marine Corps possessed an actual strength of 344 
officers and 14,981 men. A larger corps was au- 

* See " Soldiers of the Sea " by Willis J. Abbot. Dodd, Mead 
& Co., N. Y., 1919. 



"256 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

thorized by law but had never been enlisted. Those 
in the service were veterans, not merely in years 
with the colors but in point of actual war service 
in the field. They had smelled powder in both 
hemispheres. They had within a very few months 
been fighting at Vera Cruz, in Haiti and Santo 
Domingo. About 1,750 were on ships while the 
remainder were scattered about enforcing the au- 
thority of the United States wherever it was defied. 
Immediately the work began of increasing the 
numbers of the corps. The first law for this pur- 
pose, enacted by Congress in May, 1917, provided 
for a personnel of thirty thousand enlisted men. 
This figure was gradually increased until at the 
end of the war there were nearly sixty thousand 
enlisted men wearing the marine insignia. Rapid 
as was the increase in numbers the high standard 
that had always characterized the corps was not 
lowered. It was not easy to get into the marines. 
Physically, morally and mentally the applicant for 
enlistment had to prove himself fit. And already 
the reputation of the corps was so high that it had 
practically the pick of the young patriots who 
wanted to serve their country. In speaking of the 
Sixth Regiment of Marines, General Catlin, who 
drilled it, says : 

'' I must tell something of this sixth regiment of mine. 
... The officers from captain up, and fifty or so of the 
non-commissioned officers were old-time marines, but the 
iunior officers and all of the privates were new men. They 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 257 

were of superior quality throughout, and they had been 
through the intensive training of the Marine Corps. By 
the time they were through the training on French soil 
I doubt if any army officer could have discovered the 
slightest trace of newness about them. They acted like 
veterans, they thought like veterans, and all because of 
that training and the material they were to start with. 

" They were as fine a bunch of upstanding American 
athletes as you would care to meet and they had brains 
as well as brawn. Sixty per cent of the entire regiment 
— mark this — sixty per cent of them were college men. 
Two-thirds of one entire company came straight from the 
University of Minnesota. . . . The Turk will fight like 
a fiend; the Moro's trade is slaying; it was Fuzzy-Wuzzy 
who broke a British square; the Boche will move in mass 
formation into the face of death like a ferry-boat entering 
its slip; but when the final show-down comes, when the 
last ounce of strength and nerve is called for, when mind 
and hand must act like lightning together, I will take my 
chances with an educated man, a free-born American with 
a trained mind. Unquestionably the intelligent, educated 
man makes in the long run the best soldier. There is no 
room for the mere brute in modern warfare. It is a 
contest of brains as well as brawn and the best brains 
win. The American colleges doubtless supposed they were 
turning men into scholars ; when the test came they found 
they had been training soldiers." 

But the officers intrusted with developing the 
Marine Corps were not content with the training 
the colleges had given their recruits. It takes 
savage drill and wrought-iron discipline to 
make a perfect marine. Training camps were 



258 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

established at Mare Island, Cal., and at Paris 
Island, S. C, while for the finishing touches be- 
fore sending the fighting men overseas a great 
camp was maintained at Quantico, Va., near the na- 
tional capital. Here the men were drilled, and 
drilled, and then drilled some more until their bod- 
ies responded instinctively to the word of com- 
mand. They were taught to shoot, to thrust the 
bayonet with deadly aim at an enemy's vitals, to 
cut wire and to string wire, to dig trenches and to 
clamber out of them at the cry of " over the top ! " 
They were taught the use of the machine gun, and 
to stand steady in the face of the murderous clatter 
of those infernal engines of death. They hiked 
until every bone ached, and they slept like logs 
until the notes of the reveille brought them up all 
standing and with every trace of fatigue gone. Dis- 
cipline, drill, systematic exercise and outdoor life 
do so much to develop man that it seems a pity that 
they are enforced upon him in their fullest perfec- 
tion only as a preparation for going out to be shot. 
While this preparation took time it was pressed 
with such energy that the marines had the honor to 
be the second fighting troops to land on French 
soil. The first were a small force of engineers. 
Ordinarily engineers are not ranked with the fight- 
ing forces, but after what was done by men of this 
service at Chateau-Thierry, where they blocked the 
passage of the bridge by the enemy and barred the 
Boche's way to Paris, no one will grudge them a 
place with the fighters. 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 259 

But the marines were second, the Fifth Regiment 
of that corps landing in June, 1917, at St. Nazaire, 
near Brest. The service of this regiment was for a 
time mainly provost guard duty. In September the 
Sixth was landed and throughout the last months 
of the year a steady stream of marines flowed into 
France until the uniform of the devil-dogs was 
known all the way from the sea to the Vosges. By 
May they were in the trenches and their first bap- 
tism of fire came in that month on the Meuse, south- 
east of Verdun, when a shell burst in the trench 
killing two and wounding one of the 82nd Com- 
pany, Sixth Regiment. It was an introduction to a 
sort of experience that became very commonplace 
to the marines in the next two months. For, in 
proportion to the number of men engaged, the 
losses in this corps exceeded any recorded during 
the war. It must be kept in mind that while the 
total enlistment in the Marine Corps approached 
sixty thousand, only about eight thousand w^ere 
actually engaged in the more important battles of 
the war. This was due, of course, to the brief time 
for which the Boche held out after the United 
States actually took up arms. But of the marines 
thus engaged nearly half figured in the list of 
casualties. The Secretary of the Navy, in sum- 
ming up the achievements of the Marine Corps 
after the armistice, said : 

"With only 8,000 men engaged in the fiercest battles, 
the Marine Corps casualties numbered 69 oflBcers and 1,531 



260 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

enlisted men dead, and 78 officers and 2,435 enlisted men 
wounded seriously enough to be officially reported by 
cablegram, to which number should be added not a few; 
whose wounds did not incapacitate them for further fight- 
ing. However, with a casualty list that numbers nearly 
half the original 8,000 men who entered battle the official 
reports account for only 57 United States marines who 
have been captured by the enemy. This includes those who 
were wounded far in advance of their lines and who fell 
into the hands of Germans while unable to resist." 

It was in the last weeks of May, 1918, that the 
first opportunity for great service came to the 
United States marines. There had been no gloomier 
period during the whole war for the Allies. At a 
time when the Boches might fairly have been ex- 
pected to show signs of complete exhaustion and 
hopelessness they had suddenly burst forth with a 
new and menacing advance. March 21st, Hinden- 
burg had launched his great drive in Picardy which 
had progressed to a point which made the world 
believe that the Channel ports were threatened 
and that England itself was in danger of invasion. 
Checked at last on this line, and with the aid of 
American troops at Cantigny, the Hun turned his 
attention to what he thought was another weak> 
point in the Allied line. This time he struck north- 
west of Rheims — struck suddenly and savagely at 
a point where the French line had been weakened 
by sending aid to Picardy. The drive began on 
May 27th and for a time seemed irresistible. The 
monstrous force of Boches, 400,000 at least, with 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 261 

tanks, machine guns, death-dropping aircraft, 
heavy and light artillery, flame throwers and gas 
projectors rolled over and through the French lines 
and on toward Paris at a rate of six or eight miles 
a day — and the Capital of the World was but forty- 
four miles away. The Metz-to-Paris road was the 
immediate objective and it seemed that nothing 
could stop the triumphant advance of the Germans 
toward it. 

But in their path lay the River Marne — that 
stream that once before had helped the French 
under the immortal Joffre to beat back their foe 
and save their adored city. If rivers could be 
canonized as individuals are, surely the Marne 
is entitled to sainthood along with Joan of 
Arc. 

This time the enemy thought to cross the river 
at ChA^teau-Thierry, a little French town built 
astride of the stream which here was crossed by 
two stone bridges. In the spring swollen with 
the floods the Marne is a swiftly flowing torrent 
which may well bar the passage of an army. The 
town is constructed solidly of stone and brick, like 
most French towns, and the streets are closely 
built up to the very water's edge. The Germans 
carried the main city, on the northern bank of the 
river in their first rush, driving the French before 
them through the narrow winding streets and 
across the bridges. Speedily the enemy brought 
light artillery and machine guns into position, cov- 
ering the bridge-heads so that he might throw his 



262 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

infantry across. Once across, the way to Paris lay 
open. 

It was at this moment that the Americans threw 
themselves into the breach and saved France's im- 
perial city. But it was not to the Marine Corps 
that the glory of the first defense of Chateau- 
Thierry fell, although for a long time it was thought 
that they were the force that held the bridge-head. 
They were indeed in the battle of Chateau-Thierry 
but in the outskirts of the town. The rough check 
administered to the foe at the bridges was due to 
the fighting quality of a machine-gun battalion 
of the Third Division, which had been kept waiting 
for orders that never came, somewhere about one 
hundred kilometers in the rear of the French front. 
When the Germans swooped down upon the little 
town, filling all the roads with a torrent of men and 
sweeping down upon the bridges in an apparently 
resistless tide, the cry went up from the French for 
aid. It reached the ears of those in command of 
this little body of Americans. All unused to battle 
they were loaded into lorries in the dead of night 
and for hours sped along the black roads steering 
only toward the sound of the guns. As the sun 
rose they came to the scarred and ruined outskirts 
of the little city. None of them had ever faced 
fire before, and the deep boom of the heavy guns, 
the shells bursting in the streets about them and 
the steady rattle of the machine guns gave them 
a terrifying foretaste of what they had to encounter. 
But they brought all the dash and courage of young 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 263 

America to the fight. Leaping from their auto- 
trucks, stiff and cramped with their long night's 
run, they limbered up their guns and plunged into 
the thick of the fight. They cleared the streets 
of the advancing Bodies. They drove the foe away 
from the bridges and enabled the French sappers 
to destroy them with explosives. They mowed 
down the enemy on the broad esplanade that skirts 
the river, and in the little narrow streets from 
the walls of which the bullets ricochetted with 
deadly effect. They captured many of the foe and 
a number of machine guns, although not one of 
their own number fell prisoner to the Boche. But 
many, very many, gave up their lives, or suffered 
cruel wounds in the successful effort to stay the 
advance of the invader. A full account of this gal- 
lant action is out of place here, as despite popular 
misapprehension at the time, the marines took no 
part in it, although the commanding of&cer of the 
fighting battalion of machine gunners was a major 
of marines who had been assigned to them a few 
days before for training purposes. The marines 
themselves were engaged along the Marne, within 
the borders of Chateau-Thierry but not in the 
actual town. 

This battle was fought on June 2nd. The 
marines had just arrived after a mad rush of 
seventy -two miles in motor cars, huge trucks, with 
seats along the sides, covered with canvas like the 
prairie schooners of our pioneering days, and hold- 
ing forty or fifty men each. The French had these 



264 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

camions by the thousands — enough it was said to 
transport a quarter of a million men. Brigadier- 
General Catlin, U.S.M.C, who accompanied that 
mad ride writes of it : 

" We were some seventy-five miles from our destination, 
and many of the units made a longer trip than that. On 
the whole the roads were good, but the journey had its 
exciting incidents. Most of those camions had been work- 
ing for seventy-two hours at a stretch carrying troops, and 
the drivers were worn out. Some of them fell asleep at 
their wheels and several ran off the road into the ditch. 

" As to our men they were fresh and eager after their 
night on the hard ground. We must have seemed an 
extraordinary spectacle to the inhabitants of the country 
through which we passed, the interminable caravan of 
motor-lorries filled with merry men in khaki, and the long 
train of ' artillery, machine guns, supply wagons, mules 
and automobiles. They seemed to know what it meant for 
they cheered us lustily on our way. 

" We skirted Paris about nine miles to the south of us, 
and passed through pretty villages, in many of which the 
people were out in full force, waving small American 
flags, and throwing flowers into the camions. It was more 
like an enormous bridal procession than a column of 
fighters going to face a terrible death." 

But there was plenty to enforce upon the minds 
of those men, speeding through the dust to the 
sound of distant cannon, exact knowledge of what 
they were about to encounter. For after some 
hours' riding they came upon the wreckage of bat- 
tle drifting sullenly or pitifully to the rear. The 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 265 

wounded were there crowded into ambulances, or 
hobbling painfully along the roads with some com- 
rade's aid. The stragglers, the defeated, plodded 
backward away from the firing, crushed, despondent 
with their spirit gone, their minds resigned to the 
thought that after all the years of fighting, of sacri- 
fice and of suffering the Boche was at last blasting 
his way through to Paris. So dense was the throng 
of fleeing French soldiers, with their ambulances, 
camp wagons and rumbling guns that it was with 
difficulty that the Yankees could make their way 
along toward the front where they alone could stay 
the foe's progress. It was midnight before a halt 
for rest was called, and then, still four miles from 
the actual front, the dust-caked men, weary with 
the weight of their sixty-pound packs, threw them- 
selves down under the open sky, with the sound of 
the near-by guns roaring in their ears and sought 
such rest as they might find. 

The marines at this time, in common with the 
rest of the American army in that sector, were 
under command of French general officers. There 
had been much confusion of orders, owing to the de- 
moralization of the French command, and all night 
and until noon of the next day the battalions came 
straggling up into line. At last the greater part 
of the Fifth and Sixth regiments were up, and the 
men began to get restive for participation in the 
fight which they could hear going on three miles or 
more in advance of them. General Harbord, in 
command, went to the French headquarters to urge 



266 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

that his men be sent in. The French commanders 
were doubtful. They needed help badly enough, 
for their advance lines were being driven in, and 
where they held they w^ere exhausted by long fight- 
ing and had no reserves to oppose to the seemingly 
inexhaustible flood of the Huns. But they did not 
know the quality of these Americans who had never 
been in battle, and who were but poorly supplied 
with such necessities of war as tanks, gas shells and 
flame projectors. For a moment they hesitated. 
General Harbord was insistent. 

" Let us fight in our own way," he said, " and I'll 
promise that we will stop them." 

Assent was given. Freed from further control 
by the French Harbord ordered his men forward, 
and the battle of Belleau Wood, which began then, 
was fought by Americans in an American fashion, 
and to an American — which is to say to a victorious 
— conclusion. 

The first position taken by the marines was about 
half a mile back of the front held desperately by 
the French. They were told to dig in and get ready 
for a desperate defense, for it was plain that the 
troops on the front line were outnumbered, ex- 
hausted and must soon fall back. The Germans, 
with their aircraft, were picking out weak spots 
in the French line and then hurling powerful 
columns against that point. Once it was carried 
they would select another target and concentrate 
their attack there. By persistently practicing 
these tactics they had been advancing six or seven 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 267 

miles a day, and Paris was less than forty -five miles 
to the rear. 

The American line, as held by the marines, was 
about four miles long, extending from Mares Farm, 
past Belleau Wood. Shallow trenches and rifle 
jjits hastily dug furnished all the protection avail- 
able. Such as it was it was constructed at night, 
under a light fire from the enemy who did not seem 
aware of the nature of the new troops that were 
being brought into action. 

In the morning the marines awoke to the fact 
that a supreme test awaited them. There was at 
first no attack upon their lines but they could hear 
the fierce fire in their front, and the rapidly in- 
creasing number of French stragglers passing 
through their lines to the rear showed that those 
gallant fellows were at last worn to the breaking 
point. Everybody knew that the Americans' turn 
would come next, and sure enough the attack was 
launched, through a field of wheat still green in the 
ear, at about five o'clock in the afternoon. The 
assault fell first upon a French line which was in 
advance of the Americans, and in full view of our 
men. They met it gallantly enough at first, but 
the Germans kept coming on in increasing num- 
bers, in column ranks, steadily, doggedly, pressing 
forward through the wheat up to their waists. The 
retreating French passed through our lines, and 
then our men breasted the Boche advance. Our 
marines may have been new to the field of battle 
but they were no strangers to scientific marksman- 



S6g BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

ship. For months they had been drilled to the end 
that they might not throw away their shots in time 
o^ need, and now with rifle, machine gun and 
howitzer loaded with shrapnel they poured in a 
murderous fire. The orderly lines of Germans 
advancing through the grain fell in a bloody har- 
vest. The poppies that blazed in the field were not 
redder than the splotches of blood where the flying 
missiles did their deadliest work in the crowded 
ranks. Thrown for a moment into confusion, the 
Germans halted, reformed and came on again. No- 
body ever in this war accused the Germans of lack 
of gallantry in the charge. But this time the 
obstacle was too strong for them. Three times they 
reformed, and thrice their lines were cut into 
pieces. The dark brought merciful excuse for 
abandoning an assault which it was plain could 
never be pressed to success. They sought refuge in 
the woods which thereupon the marines shelled de- 
liberately and effectively. The Hun was whipped 
in his first brush with American soldiers. 

All that night our lines were disarranged by 
French soldiers straggling to the rear. Perhaps it 
was because they had seen the ability of the new- 
come Americans to handle the foe that had been 
pounding them so mercilessly that put an end to 
the determination with which they had thus far 
held their ground. Perhaps had we not been there 
they would have recognized the need for the con- 
tinuance of their own efforts and still bent dog- 
gedly to their defense. No one familiar with the 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 269 

history of the war will question for a moment the 
unfailing gallantry of the French soldiers in all 
emergencies, and particularly the desperate deter- 
mination with which he blocked with his bleeding 
body the path to Paris. But here at Belleau Wood 
the arrival of sorely needed help was coincident 
with his own utter exhaustion, and accordingly the 
weary poilu retired and left the subsequent re- 
pulse of the Boche to his American allies. 

In that first day's fighting our men had suffered 
for lack of food. There had been confusion on the 
roads, and in the orders issued. The food kitchens 
had not come up, and the men were limited to such 
scraps of rations as remained in their haversacks. 
But next day came up first a train of motor trucks 
with an ample supply of cold rations. The men 
still hungered for something hot, and late in the 
afternoon amid joyous cheers the mule train with 
the rolling kitchens put in an appearance. The 
mules — one of America's most prized contributions 
to the machinery of all wars — had been driven at a 
gallop fifty-five miles in twenty-two hours. With 
their arrival a hot meal went forward to all the 
men and they gulped their coffee and slept con- 
tentedly to await a hot fight on the morrow. 

The story of the first day's fighting and the Ger- 
man repulse was told with singular vividness in a 
personal letter from Major Frank E. Evans to 
Major-General George Barnett, which is published 
in full in General Catlin's book, " With the Help 
of God and a Few Marines." I quote in part : 



270 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

" The Germans . . . were driving at Hill 165 from the 
N. and IST, N. E. and they came out on a wonderfully 
clear day, in two columns across a wheat field. From 
our distance it looked flat and green as a baseball field set 
between a row of woods on the farther side, and woods and 
a ravine on the near side. We could see the two thin 
brown columns advancing in perfect order until two-thirds 
of the columns, we judged, were in view. The rifle and 
machine fire were incessant and overhead the shrapnel 
were bursting. Then the shrapnel came on the target at 
each shot. It broke Just over, and just ahead of these 
columns and then the next burst sprayed over the very 
green in which we could see the columns moving. It seemed 
for all the world that the green fields had burst out in 
patches of white daisies where we could see those columns 
doggedly moving. And it did it again and again, no bar- 
rage but with the skill and accuracy of a cat playing with 
two brown mice that she could reach and mutilate at will 
and without any hurry. The white patches would roll 
away and we could see that some of the columns were still 
there, slowed up, and it seemed perfect uicide for them 
to try. 

"You could not begrudge a tribute to their pluck at 
that. Then under that deadly fire and the barrage of 
rifle and machine-gun fire the Boche stopped. It was too 
much for any men. They buried in, or broke to the cover 
of the woods and you could follow them by the ripples of 
the green wheat as they raced for cover. The Fifth bore 
the brunt of it, and on our left the men raked the 
woods and ravines to stop the Boche at his favorite trick of 
infiltrating through. An aeroplane was overhead checking 
lip our artillery fire, and when the shrapnel lay down on 
those columns just as an elephant would lie down on a 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 271 

ton of hay, the French aviator signaled back to our lines 
' Bravo ! ' The French, who were in support of the Fifth 
and one time thrown into the line, could not, and cannot to- 
day, grasp the rifle fire of the men. That men should fire 
deliberately and use their sights, and adjust their range 
was beyond their experience. The rifle fire certainly figured 
heavily in the toll we took, and it must have had a telling 
effect on the morale of the Boche, for it was something 
they had not counted on. As a matter of fact after push- 
ing back the weakened French and then running up against 
a stone-wall defense, they were literally up in the air and 
more than stopped. We found that out later from prison- 
ers, for the Germans never knew we were in the front line 
when they made that attack. They were absolutely mys- 
tified at the manner in which the defense had stiffened up 
until they found that our troops were in line. 

" The next day Wise's outfit pulled a spectacular stunt 
in broad daylight. They spotted a machine gun out in 
front, called for a barrage, swept out behind it, killed 
or wounded every man in the crew, and disabled the gun. 
They got back 0. K. and then the Boche launched a 
counter-attack that was smashed up. For the next few 
days we were busy pushing out small posts to locate the 
enemy and to reoccupy such strong points as were beyond 
the main line assigned us. ... It was just 9 :45 when word 
came in that Bouresches had been taken by Eobertson's 
platoon of the 96th, or rather the twenty odd men of his 
platoon who had managed to break through a heavy 
machine-gun barrage and enter the town. One of Sibley's 
companies had been assigned the town, with Holcomb's 
battalion to establish the line from there to where the 
23rd's left flank lay. It had been unable to advance and at 
the same time keep in touch on its left, as ordered. Duncan, 



S72 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

however, hearing that this company was 200 yards in ad- 
vance (an error) raced ahead with his 96th company and 
was met by a terrific machine-gun barrage from two sides 
of, and from Bouresches. As Robertson told me he had 
managed to get part of his platoon through the barrage 
and looking back, saw Duncan and the rest of the company 
charging through the barrage ' go down like flies/ Robert- 
son had one half the line and Duncan one half. Robert- 
son blew his whistle just before this to bring up all of his 
half of the line, and missed Lieutenant Bowling. He 
passed the word * Where is Johnny ? ' and saw Bowling get 
up, white with pain, and go stumbling ahead with a bullet 
in his shoulder. Duncan, the last he saw of him, before he 
was mowed down, had a pipe in his mouth and was carrying 
a stick. Dental Surgeon Osborne picked Duncan up and 
•with a hospital corps man had just gained some shelter 
when a shell wiped all three out." 

When the next day dawned all the French troops 
had been withdrawn from the sector held by the 
marines. Though not long — it extended for about 
four miles — it w^as a wide enough gate for any 
army to pass through, and it was the task of the 
devil-dogs to see that none should pass. 

The Germans had evidently been surprised at the 
new resistance they had encountered, for they now 
suspended operations to bring up more men and 
guns. But that was a game at which two could 
play, and the Americans improved their positions 
and brought to the aid of the marines three regi- 
ments of United States artillery — all by the way 
operating French guns as we had not enough of 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 273 

our own. During the third and fourth of the month 
the Germans pounded away at our lines with artil- 
lery of every grade using shrapnel in such quan- 
tities that it could be scooped up by the shovelful in 
the streets of the town, and gas, which was a nov- 
elty to our men, and one with which they could 
readily have dispensed. 

It was an American navy officer, Admiral Far- 
ragut of glorious memory, who said that the best 
defense against an enemy was the rapid fire of your 
own guns. Now lined up along the dark and sullen 
front of Belleau Wood our men waited two days for 
the Germans to come out. As they did not come 
the marines went in. 

Belleau Wood is not a large forest. The front 
toward the American lines extended for about a 
mile. The trees were about five or six inches in 
diameter, and so thickly set that it was impossible 
to see more than fifteen or twenty feet ahead, ex- 
cept where the shells had cut away. Woods in 
France are not permitted to grow wild as with us, 
but are subjected to the constant care of the for- 
ester who clears out the underbrush, and the trees 
that are ready for timbering, replacing the latter 
with new plantations. Accordingly there was but 
little undergrowth in this wood, and that mainly of 
vegetation that had sprung up during the war. 
This however gave ample shelter and concealment 
to the machine guns, which our men soon found 
awaited their coming in murderous numbers. The 
ground was high and rocky, and hid many gullies 



274 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

and crags. Before entering the thicket it was vir- 
tually impossible for our men to tell what they 
might encounter. 

Into that tangled thicket, knowing little and car- 
ing less what form of danger they might there 
encounter, the marines rushed. For four steady 
days they waged there a desperate conflict against 
Huns well equipped with machine guns, hidden in 
the underbrush, fortified behind outcropping ledges 
of limestone, or sheltered in some deep gully. No 
advance of a hundred feet could be made with any 
certainty that the new position would not be taken 
in the rear by some enemy gun crew left behind in 
the rush. General Harbord had asked for an op- 
portunity for the American troops to fight in their 
own way, and that way, now that it was being fol- 
lowed, proved to be the one dating back to the 
time of Washington at Fort Duquesne. Every 
American schoolboy knows the story of how, when 
the Indians had thrown General Braddock's army 
of British veterans into confusion and rout, Wash- 
ington took command and with his band of trained 
woodsmen, fighting after the fashion of the pioneer, 
behind trees and rocks and giving no heed to formal 
military formations, snatched victory from the very 
jaws of defeat. So here in the woods of France, 
almost one hundred and fifty years later, the 
American fighters went in, every one for himself 
and with but one general idea to get at the enemy 
and drive him from his hiding-place. But before 
they took up the fight in the wood itself the marines 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 275 

had to do just what they had kept the Boche from 
doing earlier. It was their turn to charge through 
the field of wheat, waist-deep in the waving grain, 
and in the face of a pelting fire from the enemy- 
machine guns hidden in the wood. But where the 
Germans had failed our men succeeded. " At five 
o'clock to the dot," writes Floyd Gibbons, an eye- 
witness of all this fighting until he himself fell 
wounded, " the marines moved out from the woods 
in perfect order and started across the wheat fields 
in four long waves. It was a beautiful sight, these 
men of ours going across those flat fields toward 
those tree clusters from which the Germans poured 
a murderous machine-gun fire. 

" The woods were impregnated with nests of 
machine guns but our advance proved irresistible. 
Many of our men fell but those that survived 
pushed on through the woods, bayoneting right 
and left and firing as they charged. So sweeping 
was the advance that in some places small isolated 
units of our men found themselves with Germans 
both before and behind them. 

" The enemy put up a stubborn resistance on the 
left and it was not until later in the evening that 
this part of the line reached the northeast edge of 
the woods after it had completely surrounded a 
most populous machine-gun nest which was lo- 
cated on a rocky hill." 

To make his way through the wood the marine 
thrust himself through the thickets, climbed the 
rocky ledges, fiung himself headlong into the caves, 



276 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

and beat down the Bodies in a battle in which there 
were significantly few prisoners taken. Private 
W. H. Smith, of the marines, told the story of the 
fighting as he saw it thus: 

" At four A.M. we went over or rather charged forward, 
since there were no trenches to speak of and the fighting 
was all in the open or in the woods. 

" There wasn't a bit of hesitation from any man. All 
went forward in an even line. You had not heart for 
fear at all. Fight — fight and get the Germans was your 
only thought. Personal danger didn't concern you in the 
least and you didn't care. 

" There were about sixty of us who got ahead of the rest 
of the company. We just couldn't stop despite the orders 
of our leaders. We reached the edge of the small wooded 
area and there encountered some of the Hun infantry. 

" Then it became a matter of shooting at mere human 
targets. We fixed our rifle sights at 300 yards and aiming 
through the peep kept picking off the Germans. And a 
man went down at nearly every shot. 

" But the Germans soon detected us and we became the 
objects of their heavy fire. We received emphatic orders 
at this time to come back and made the half mile through 
the woods without hardly losing a man on the way. 

" German machine guns were everywhere. In the trees 
and in small ground holes. And camouflaged at other 
places so that they couldn't be spotted. 

" We stayed for the most part in one-man pits that had 
been dug and which gave us just a little protection. 

" We saw one German a short distance before us, who 
had two dead ones lying across him. He was in a sitting 
posture and was shouting ' Kamerad, Kamerad.' We soon 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 277 

learned the reason. He was serving as a lure and wanted 
a group of marines to come to his rescue so that the kind- 
hearted Americans would be in direct line of fire from 
machine guns that were in readiness. 

"Now isn't that a dirty trick? Say, it made me sore. 
Before I knew what I was doing and before I realized that 
every one was shouting at me to stay back I bobbed up out 
of my hole and with bayonet ready beat it out and got that 
Kamerad bird. It seemed but a minute or so before I was 
back. But, believe me, there were some bullets whizzing 
around. They came so close at times I could almost feel 
their touch. My pack was shot up pretty much but they 
didn't get me. 

" After that I thought I was bullet proof, and didn't 
care a damn for all the Germans and their machine guns. 

" Soon we charged forward again. I saw one Dutchman 
stick his head out of a hole and then duck. I ran to the 
hole. The next time his head came up it was good-night 
Fritz. 

" Every blame J tree must have had a machine gunner. 
As soon as we spied him we'd drop down and pick them 
off with our rifles. Potting the Germans became great 
sport. Even the officers would seize rifles from wounded 
marines and go to it." 

The Secretary of the Navy, departing from the 
ofl&cial custom of a colorless account of the opera- 
tions of his forces, wrote an enthusiastic report of 
the gallant deeds of the Marine Corps, the part of 
which relating to the battle of Belleau Wood may 
well be quoted in full : 

"In Belleau Wood the fighting had been literally from 
tree to tree, stronghold to stronghold; and it was a fight 



278 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

which must last for weeks before its accomplishment in 
victory. Belleau Wood was a Jungle, its every rocky forma- 
tion containing a German machine-gun nest, almost im- 
possible to reach by artillery or grenade fire. There was 
only one way to wipe out these nests — by the bayonet. 
And by this method were they wiped out, for United States 
Marines, bare chested, shouting their battle cry of * E-e-e-e- 
y-a-a-h-h-h YIP,' charged straight into the murderous fire 
from those guns, and won. 

" Out of the number that charged in more than one in- 
stance only one would reach the stronghold. There with 
his bayonet as his only weapon he would either kill or cap- 
ture the defenders of the nest, and then, swinging the gun 
about in its position, turn it against the remaining German 
positions in the forest. Such was the character of the 
fighting in Belleau Wood; fighting which continued until 
July 6, when, after a short relief, the invincible Americans 
finally were taken back to the rest billets for recuperation. 

" In all the history of the Marine Corps there is no such 
battle as that one in Belleau Wood. Fighting day and 
night, without relief, without sleep, often without water, 
and for days without hot rations, the marines met and de- 
feated the best divisions that Germany could throw into the 
line. The heroism and doggedness of that battle are un- 
paralleled. Time after time, officers seeing their lines cut 
to pieces, seeing their men so dog-tired that they even fell 
asleep under shell-fire, hearing their wounded calling for 
the water they were unable to supply, seeing men fight on 
after they had been wounded and until they became uncon- 
scious, time after time officers seeings these things, believing 
that the very limit of human endurance had been reached, 
would send back messages to their post command that their 
men were exhausted, But in answer to this would come 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 279 

back the word that the line must hold, and, if possible, 
those lines must attack. And the lines obeyed. Without 
water, without food, without rest they went forward — and 
forward every time to victory. In more than one case com- 
panies lost every officer, leaving a sergeant and sometimes 
a corporal to command, and the advance went forward — 
and forward every time to victory. 

" After thirteen days of this inferno of fire a captured 
German officer told with his dying breath of a fresh division 
of Germans that was about to be thrown into the battle 
to attempt to wrest from the marines that part of the wood 
they had gained. The marines, who for days had been 
fighting only on their sheer nerve, who had been worn out 
from nights of sleeplessness, from lack of rations, from 
terrific shell and machine-gun fire, straightened their lines 
and prepared for the attack. It came — as the dying Ger- 
man officer had predicted. 

" At two o'clock on the morning of June 13th it was 
launched by the Germans along the whole front. With- 
out regard to men the enemy hurled his forces against 
Bouresches and the Bois de Belleau and sought to win back 
what had been taken from Germany by the Americans. 
The orders were that these positions must be taken at all 
costs; that the utmost losses in men must be endured that 
the Bois de Belleau and Bouresches might fall again into 
German hands. But the depleted lines of the marines held ; 
the men who had fought on their nerve alone for days 
once more showed the mettle of which they were made. 
With their backs to the trees and boulders of the Bois de 
Belleau, with their sole shelter the scattered ruins of 
Bouresches, the thinning lines of the marines repelled the 
attack and crashed back the new division which had sought 
to wrest the position from them. 



280 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

"And so it went. Day after day, night after night, 
•while time after time messages like the following traveled 
to the post command : 

" * Losses heavy. Difficult to get runners through. 
Some have never returned. Morale excellent but 
troops about all in. Men exhausted.* 

"Exhausted but holding on. And they continued to 
hold on in spite of every difficulty. Advancing their lines 
slowly day by day, the marines finally prepared their posi- 
tions to such an extent that the last rush for the possession 
of the wood could be made. Then, on June 24th, following 
a tremendous barrage the struggle began. 

" The barrage literally tore the woods to pieces, but even 
its immensity could not wipe out all the nests that re- 
mained, the emplacements tliat were behind every clump 
of bushes, every jagged rough group of bowlders. But 
those that remained were wiped out by the American 
method of the rush and the bayonet, and in the days that 
followed every foot of Belleau Wood was cleared of the 
enemy and held by the frayed lines of the Americans." 



It must be remembered that Belleau Wood was 
in no respect what we in America would call a 
forest. Bather was it what we would describe as 
a " patch of woods." It was perhaps a mile square, 
and surrounded by cultivated fields. But until it 
was cleared out and held the American lines could 
not advance without leaving it like a great pest hole 
in their rear. It had therefore to be taken, and 
taken it was. 

Now, in France the points of hardest resistance 
:w^ere woods and villages. Belleau Wood had been 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 281 

overcome, but in its immediate vicinity, to the 
east, was the village of Bouresches from which it 
was equally necessary to drive the foe. There were 
probably three or four hundred Germans in the vil- 
lage, well provided with machine guns. Like all 
French towns this was built of heavy rubble 
masonry, and each house was in effect a small fort, 
impervious to mere rifle fire. The defenders had 
mounted their guns at street corners, in the deeply 
embrasured windows, behind walls and even on 
the roofs. 

Two companies of marines from Sibley's and Hol- 
comb's battalions were ordered to drive out the 
enemy. To reach their objective they had first to 
charge across a field of grain, as had their fellows 
attacking Belleau Wood. They knew the fighting 
would be hand to hand, and the first two ranks of 
the assailants were supplied with hand grenades 
and automatic pistols ; the two following with rifles 
and bayonets. A brief bombardment cleared the 
way in part for the attack. 

The fire from the town was savage. Captain Dun- 
can leading one company — there were but two com- 
panies in the attacking force — was shot down as he 
was marching doggedly forward pipe in mouth. 
More men fell than could continue the advance. 
Before they reached the first streets of the village 
so many had fallen that they were enormously out- 
numbered by the defenders. Lieutenant Robertson, 
who took command after Duncan's fall had barely 
twenty men when he came to grips with the Boches, 



282 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

but those twenty were devil-dogs and they won. 

It was fierce hand to hand fighting in the narrow 

streets, the hallways and even the cellars of the 

French houses. In the midst of it all Robertson 

discovered that he had but twenty effective men 

left. Hs sent back for reinforcements but waited 

not one minute for them to come up. With his 

twenty he started in to clean up the town. That 

was a desperate and bloody task. The cellars were 

full of Boches, some of whom fought to the death, 

while others cowering in terror had fairly to be 

dragged out. A grenade or two in a crowded cellar 

does terrible execution, and the marines had little 

time nor much inclination to be overgentle with 

the foe. It was an Australian who remarked that 

the Americans were good soldiers but inclined to 

be rough, and there was no field on which the slogan 

" Treat 'em rough " was more literally followed 

than at Bouresches. It is proper to note, however, 

that the report, current at the time, that the 

marines had been ordered to take no prisoners was 

emphatically and officially denied. Considerations 

of humanity aside such a command would have 

been the poorest policy, for nothing makes men 

fight more desperately than the knowledge that 

they are doomed to certain death, and it was the 

capture of the village more than the slaughter of 

Germans that was the American objective. It was 

not, however, a moment when the niceties of 

human intercourse were observed. Floyd Gibbons 

tells a story of an aristocratic German officer, very 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 283 

precise as to uniform, wearing a monocle and an 
air of wounded dignity, whom he saw taken pris- 
oner in the course of the fight. Gibbons asked him 
his opinion of the fighting qualities of the American 
soldier. The captive, who had been in the United 
States and spoke English, was much aggrieved. 
His dignity had been affronted. 

" I was in a dugout with forty German wounded 
in the cellar under the Beaurepaire farm when the 
terrible bombardment broke out," he said. " I 
presume my gallant comrades defending the posi- 
tion died at their posts, because soon the barrage 
lifted and I walked across the cellar to the bottom 
of the stairs and looked up. 

" There in the little patch of white light on the 
level of the ground above me, I saw the first Ameri- 
can soldier I have seen in the war. But he did 
not impress me much as a soldier. I did not like 
his carriage or his bearing. 

" He wore his helmet far back on his head. And 
he did not have his coat on. His collar was not but- 
toned, it was rolled back and his throat was bare. 
And he had a grenade in his hand. 

" Just then he looked down the stairs and saw 
me — saw me standing there — saw me a major — and 
shouted roughly, ' Come out of there you big 
Dutch stiff or I'll spill a basketful of these 
on you.' " 

While the men under Robertson were busy with 
grenades and bayonets clearing up the town, rein- 
forcements under Captain Zane, together with a 



284 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

company of engineers, came to their aid. They 
knew well enough that it was not enough to take 
the position ; they had to hold it. The enemy would 
be back with his counter-attack before long, and 
the marines discovered that they were running out 
of ammunition. Lieutenant Moore, a Princeton 
athlete, and Sergeant John Quick started out to 
supply the need. 

Quick merits a word of biography here for he 
was one of the veterans of the corps — a marine of 
thirty years' standing. For what he did at Bou- 
resches he got a medal of honor, but he had earned 
it long before. In Cuba, during our war with Spain 
Stephen Crane, the author of " The Red Badge of 
Courage " encountered Quick at Siboney, who was 
then in calm performance of his duty as a marine. 
With a handkerchief tied to a walking-stick he was 
wig-wagging a message to the Dolphin. 

" I watched his face," said Crane, " and it was 
serene as that of a man sitting in his own library, 
the embodiment of tranquillity and absorption in 
the work at hand. We gave him sole possession of 
that part of the ridge, for this marine, with his 
back turned to the woods was wig-wagging his mes- 
sage to the Dolphin while all Spain was shooting 
at him. But with bullets singing all around he 
showed not a single trace of nervousness or haste. 
I saw him betray only one sign of emotion. That 
was when an overhead branch of a tree, cut by a 
Mauser bullet, had sagged downward. His flag had 
been caught by the swaying limb and he looked 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 285 

over his shoulder to see what held it. Then he gave 
the flag an impatient jerk. He looked annoyed." 

At Bouresches the feat for which Sergeant Quick 
won his Distinguished Service Cross was taking a 
truck load of ammunition to the advance party of 
marines who were sorely in need of such succor. 
The road over which the truck had to travel was as 
bright as day with the German flares, and so torn 
up with shell holes that the truck rolled and 
careened like a ship in a typhoon as the marines 
urged it along through the pelting hail of shell and 
shrapnel. As they approached the town they drove 
straight into the direct fire of spouting machine 
guns. But they pulled through and their comrades 
got their needed ammunition. With it they pro- 
ceeded to clean up the town. 

Another picturesque figure among the marines 
was Sergeant Dan Daly whose service dated back 
to 1899. He helped defend the compound of the 
American legation at Pekin during the Boxer Re- 
bellion, and once held a bastion single-handed 
under fire all night. For this he was awarded the 
Congressional Medal of Honor. In Haiti, sixteen 
years later, he led a squad of marines against a 
native fort, captured and burnt it. For this he 
received a second medal. When the marines landed 
at Vera Cruz just before our entrance upon the 
World War he was again a leader, and again won 
a medal. In France he fought as he had fought in 
Asia and the Caribbean. The place of battle meant 
little to him. In Belleau Wood he took a machine 



286 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

gun single-handed, and in sending him a distin- 
guished Service Cross General Pershing summed 
up his deeds of gallantry thus: 

" Sergeant Daly repeatedly performed deeds of heroism 
and great service on June 5, 1918. At the risk of his life 
he extinguished a fire in an ammunition dump in Lucy-le- 
Bocage. On June 7, 1918, while his position was under 
violent bombardment he visited all the gun crews of his 
company, then posted over a wide portion of the front, to 
cheer his men. On June 10, 1918, he attempted an enemy 
machine-gun emplacement unassisted, and captured it by 
means of hand grenades and his automatic pistol. On the 
same day, during the German attack on Bouresches, he 
brought in wounded under fire." 

Daly and Quick were but two of the gallant men 
who performed deeds of reckless daring during 
those days in Belleau Wood and around Bouresches. 

In the record of a war which included such colos- 
sal struggles as the battle of the Marne or the pro-« 
longed assaults upon Verdun, Belleau Wood does 
not bulk big in respect to either the number of 
troops engaged or the number of casualties. But 
in importance it ranks high. For there, and in the 
Allied action at Chateau-Thierry the last German 
drive on Paris was halted. Whether it was that 
thin line of marines that put the final seal of dis- 
couragement upon the Boche, or whether he had 
already shot his final bolt, cannot be determined 
with certainty. But the fact exists that after that 
day at Belleau Wood the Boche advanced not an- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 287 

other step. The rest of his career was in retreat. 
M. Clemenceau, the " Tiger " of France, has said 
that the marines saved Paris. The Parisians long 
said so. 

The German forces which opposed our men there 
outnumbered the Americans four to one, and had 
the advantage of a fortified position. But our men 
drove them from their ground, took more than 100 
guns of every caliber, and more than 1,400 prison- 
ers. What the French High Command thought of 
the American achievement is perhaps best indi- 
cated by this formal order : 

iWith Army Staff 

6930/2 Army HQ., June 30th, 19 18. 

ORDER 
In view of the brilliant conduct of the 4th Brigade 
of the 2nd U. S. Division, which in a spirited fight took 
Bouresches and the important strong point of Belleau 
Wood, stubbornly defended by a large enemy force, 
the General commanding the Vlth Army orders that 
henceforth in all official papers the Bois de Belleau 
shall be named " Bois de la Brigade de Marine." 
Division General Degoutte, 

Commanding Vlth Army. 
(Signed) DEGOUTTE. 

For a time the men of the Marine Corps enjoyed 
the quiet of rest camps. But they had proved their 
mettle too well for the general commanders charged 
with the duty of pressing the war to a victorious 
conclusion to leave them long inactive. July 18th 



288 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

they went into action again in the vicinity of Sois- 
sons, near Tigny and Vierzy. This was a bigger 
battle than that at Belleau Wood, but the marines 
were this time not the whole show, as the fight was 
participated in by the whole First and Second di- 
visions of the American army with the French 
Moroccan Corps sandwiched in between them. At 
the same time the leather-necks had ample oppor- 
tunity to show their mettle. Their hike to the field 
of battle was itself no mean achievement — a whole 
night's ride on motor lorries, followed by a day of 
hard marching, a brief rest and a night of pushing 
forward on foot to the sound of the guns. The 
Fifth regiment arrived first, delivered a surprise at- 
tack in the fall of a heavy machine-gun fire, and 
had the enemy on the run when the Second came 
up. Between the two of them they not only took 
the position but captured 7,000 prisoners and more 
than 400 pieces of artillery. Floyd Gibbons, who 
had partly recovered from his wounds received at 
Belleau Wood, was the only correspondent on the 
ground at this battle and from his account in the 
Chicago Tribune I quote some descriptive passages : 

" That night the weather for once played into the Allies' 
hands. It began to thunder, the lightning came and the 
skies spit fire. The rain came down like the spray of ma- 
chine guns. 

" While the rain poured down, from every avenue came 
two long lines of steel trucks, ammunition wagons, and 
every sort of conveyance. On either side of the road, 
marching in single file, were American marines, infantry 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 289 

and others. All were moving forward. French cavalry 
with their lances were winding in and out of the trees. 
Little French tanks, green, yellow, brown and blue, moved 
forward like monsters in the dark, guided by fellows walk- 
ing in the front with Turkish towels wrapped around their 
shoulders showing faintly white in the darkness. All moved 
through the village of Villers Cotterets. 

" It was 4 : 35. It would have been hell if the Germans 
had found out that there were 70,000 men in the forest. 
Poisonous gases would have knocked out thousands of them, 
the place would have been filled with shrapnel — and that 
would have been the end of that movement. 

" The marines had plainly the furthest distance to move 
to get into line, and they had to hurry to get there by the 
zero hour. Yet — would you believe it — after those poor fel- 
lows had been on the march all day long, they moved for- 
ward on the double in order to get there on time. 

" The marching was awful. I talked with one chap who 
was sitting down to rest. When I asked him what was the 
matter he said his feet were all in, and he could not run 
any farther. 

" ' I enlisted in the marines to kill Germans,' he said, 
' but I did not think we had to run them to death. I recom- 
mend that they give us lassoes.' " 

The fighting that followed was largely hand to 
hand. A sergeant of marines, A. R. M. Ganoe, writ- 
ing to a Pittsburg paper, gave many picturesque 
descriptions of its character. One incident is worth 
repeating : 

" The first time our battalion went over the top the lead- 
ing wave entered the woods without seeing a German. 



290 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

About one hundred yards in the woods they sighted the 
Boche. With a blood-freezing war-whoop they charged. 
Nothing on earth but concentrated cross fire by cool ma- 
chine gunners could have stopped them. And the im- 
perial German nerve, being nothing to brag of in the first 
place, had been worn ragged by our infantry. That war- 
whoop was the straw that broke their nerve. The crews 
stood by their guns. The other Germans ran. They didn't 
seem to care much about direction. Some ran into our bayo- 
nets, some ran away from them, some didn't have nerve 
enough to haul themselves free of their dugouts. But it 
made no difference. The result was the same. They're there 
yet. One German captain Jumped up from his dugout, wild- 
eyed and dishevelled. 

" ' What in Gott's name iss it ? ' he shouted in good 
English. ' Are these devils we face drunk or bloodthirsty 
savages ? ' Then he threw a hand grenade point-blank at a 
lieutenant. The Moot' ducked and leveled his automatic 
at the same time, so the captain's question is still un- 
answered." 



Again a brief rest for the marines, about the mid- 
dle of September, they were called to aid in Per- 
shing's successful attempt to reduce the St. Mihiel 
salient. That done they retired again to be re- 
called for operations in the Champagne district by 
which Rheims was freed from the German grip. 
The end of the war was now fairly in sight and 
General Pershing was launched on that drive 
toward Sedan which threatened the German com- 
munications and which, nevertheless, the enemy 
was at no time able to check. Though the enemy 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 291 

massed his best troops at the point of danger his 
resistance became first an orderly retreat, then a 
flight. The marines were in the very van of the pur- 
suers when on the 11th of November the war was 
ended by the armistice. 

The part taken in this historic conflict by the 
United States Marine Corps reflects new luster 
upon that organization whose annals were already 
glorious enough. In all 21,323 enlisted men, and 
540 officers were sent to France. Not all these, less 
than half indeed, saw actual action. But those who 
reached battle line did some of the most heroic 
fighting of the war. 



CHAPTER X 

The end of the war. — Naval conditions of the armistice. — ^The 
surrender at Scapa Flow. — Surrender of the German de- 
stroyers. — Diary of a defeated German. — Scuttling the 
German fleet. — Our naval losses in the war. — Lessons of the 
conflict. 

It was on the 11th of November, 1918, at 11 o'clock 
A.M. — eleventh month, eleventh day, eleventh hour 
the newspapers pointed out — that the World War 
was brought to an end by the signing of the armi- 
stice at General Foch's headquarters at La Capelle. 
German delegates had been brought, blindfolded, 
through the Allied lines the night before, for re- 
quests from Germany for a cessation of hostilities 
during the peace negotiations had been sternly re- 
fused. Foch had the enemy on the run and was in 
no mood to yield any shred of his advantage. It 
was an army peace, of course, and in the negotia- 
tions the navy had no share, although Vice Admiral 
Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, First Lord of the British Ad- 
miralty, and Vice Admiral William S. Sims were 
present. 

Briefly summarized the conditions of the armi- 
stice affecting naval conditions were as follows : 

The immediate surrender to the Allies and the 
United States of all German submarines, includ- 
ing mine-layers. 

292 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 293 

The internment and disarmament of practically 
all the German surface men-of-war to await the 
action of the peace conference and their final dis- 
position by treaty. 

All German aircraft to be concentrated and de- 
mobilized at specified places. 

Indication to the Allies and the United States 
of the location of all mines that the seas might be 
cleared of mine-fields. 

Opening of the Baltic to all nations. 

Evacuation of all Belgian ports and surrender 
of all vessels of every class therein. 

The announcement by the Germans to the world 
of the abandonment of submarine warfare, and the 
conclusion of the war upon the sea. 

In accordance with these terms of the armistice 
the chill and desolate harbor of Scapa Flow in 
the Orkneys was fixed as the place of internment 
for the German surface fleet. The surrender was 
ordered for November 20, 1918. Before the main 
fleet was turned over to the combined naval forces 
of England, France and the United States the first 
twenty submarines were delivered to Rear Admiral 
Tyrwhitt off Harwich at sunrise on that day. The 
British force that received the surrender of these 
sinster underwater boats consisted of five light 
cruisers and twenty destroyers. A big observation 
balloon hung over the fleet and as the ceremony 
took place at early dawn the picturesqueness of the 
occasion was added to by the sun rising in the east, 
while a great white moon still shone in the west. 



294 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

No chances were taken on the British vessels. The 
paravanes were rigged out-board to divert any 
mines that might be drifting in the neighborhood. 
Officers and men put on their life-belts, and as the 
enemy appeared in the offing the gun crews went to 
their stations as though it were a battle, not an 
abject surrender, for which preparations were mak- 
ing. No flags flew over the enemy vessels as they 
steamed sullenly out from their coast, but strips of 
bunting flying from the British flagship gave them 
the peremptory order to fall in line and follow the 
British lead. They obeyed. From every vessel of 
the victorious squadron sharp eyes watched the de- 
feated foe. Once two carrier pigeons were seen to 
rise from the tower of a submarine, and instantly 
a signal was flashed forbidding any repetition of 
this effort to communicate with the land they had 
left. Off Harwich the whole fleet came to anchor. 
Two German light cruisers had accompanied the 
enemy fleet and to them the German sailors from 
each submarine were transferred. As the boats 
were thus abandoned white flags were run up on 
each with the German ensign below, and they were 
towed into the tidal basin at Harwich. The whole 
ceremony was conducted without any manifestation 
of triumph, and indeed in almost complete silence. 
So ended the German effort to enforce the will 
of the Kaiser by undersea war. 

The next day near the entrance to the Firth of 
Forth occurred the dramatic surrender of the great 
fleet with which Germany had thought to contest 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 295 

control of the seas with England, but which had 
been doomed to spend the entire period of this 
greatest of wars in virtual inaction. The names 
and tonnage of the ships surrendered were as 
follows : 

DREADNOUGHTS 

Tons. 

Friedrich der Orosse 24,113 

Konig Albert 24,113 

Kaiser 25,000 

Kronprinz Wilhelm 25,000 

Kaiserin 24,113 

Bayern 28,000 

Markgraf 25,293 

Prinzregent Luitpold 24,113 

Grosser Kurfurst 25,293 

LIGHT CRUISERS 

Karlsruhe (?) 4,000 

Frankfurt 5,400 

Emden 5,400 

Brummer 4,000 

Breslau 4,000 

Koln (?) 4,500 

Bremen 4,000 

DESTROYERS 
Fifty— Averaging 600 tons 30,000 

BATTLE CRUISERS 

Seydlitz 25,000 

Derflinger 28,000 

Hindenburg 27,000 

Moltke 23,000 

Von der Tann 18,000 

A correspondent of the New York Times who was 
on board the United States warship Florida, one 
of the warships of our navy which shared in the 
honor of receiving the surrender of the Kaiser's 
fleet, wrote the following graphic description of 
the historic event: 



296 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

" In the bright sunlight this afternoon nine German 
battleships, five battle cruisers, and seven light cruisers 
steamed into the Firth of Forth and gave themselves up for 
internment. They were led by a tiny British cruiser, and 
as they passed between the long lines of British and Ameri- 
can battleships, the very perfection of their steaming and 
accuracy of their handling seemed to accentuate their 
humiliation. 

"How completely the menace which has hung like a 
cloud over the Allies was dissipated today is shown by the 
roll of vessels given up. Chief of the battleship squadron, 
which was commanded by Rear Admiral von Reuter, was 
the new Bayern, of 28,000 tons, and carrying eight 15-inch 
guns. Then came the Grosser Kurfiirst, the MarJcgraf, and 
the Kronprinz, each of about 25,390 tons, and with ten 
12-inch guns, and lastly the Friedrich der Grosse, Konig 
Albert, Prinzregent Luitpold, Kaiser and Kaiserin, each 
of approximately 24,310 tons and ten 12-inch guns. 

" Commodore Tagert commanded the five battle cruisers, 
the Derflinger and Hindenburg, each of 26,180 tons, with 
eight 12-inch guns; the Seydlitz, 24,610 tons, with ten 11- 
inch guns; the MoUTce, of 22,640 tons and the same arma- 
ment, and the Von der Tann, of 19,100 tons and eight 
11-inch guns. The light cruisers brought in today under 
Commodore Harder included the Karlsruhe, Nurnherg, 
K'oln, Frankfurt, Brummer, Bremen and, Emden. In 
addition there were fifty destroyers. All these are now at 
anchor under the guns of the Grand Fleet in British waters. 

" The programme for the surrender was absolutely 
simple. The Germans had expressed a willingness to give 
themselves up, and there was nothing for them to do but 
to come on their last cruise across the North Sea. 

"Last Monday (Nov. 18) the Germans, in accordance 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 29T 

with orders from Admiral Beatty, put out to sea, with 
magazines empty, their guns secured amidships, and only 
navigating and engineering crews aboard. The British 
and American fleets were in parade order to receive a visit 
from King George. On Wednesday the King, accompanied 
by the Prince of Wales, in the destroyer Oak, steamed 
along miles of water between the great fighting ships. He 
was received formally on the American flagship New YorJc 
in the afternoon by Admirals Sims and Eodman and Cap- 
tain Beach, and he met the commanding ofiicers of the other 
dreadnoughts — Florida, Arkansas, Wyoming and Texas. 
But there were two noteworthy incidents connected with 
that visit. As the King stepped upon the deck of the 
New York, for the first time since the Eevolution the Brit- 
ish royal standard was broken out at the mainmast of an 
American warship in honor of the King of England, and 
before he left he made an interesting suggestion to Admiral 
Eodman. He said he would like to see certain British 
ships cross the Atlantic each year to take part in American 
maneuvers, and American vessels in British waters at work 
with the British fleet. Thus, he thought, an understanding 
between the two great naval forces might be perpetuated. 

" Meanwhile, as the King spoke of his plans for peace, 
half a mile away was a reminder that the war was not yet 
over. As he shook hands with the American officers, out of 
the mists above the Forth Bridge came a long line of low 
gray war vessels. They paid no attention to the battleships, 
with their cheering crews. They paused not to salute the 
flag. Quietly they kept on their way. As they swung a 
little to northward toward the sea, another division of them 
slid silently up, and before these grew dim in the dusk yet 
another half dozen hove into sight. They were destroyers, 
the eyes and ears of the British fleet, and they were already 



298 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

putting out to meet the Germans. Since a little before 
noon they had begun to get under way, and from then 
until well after dark division after division of them kept 
slipping by. As they went, every one of them was as ready 
for action as though the armistice had not been signed, and 
U-boats lurked beneath the surface of the sea. 

" Admiral Beatty was taking no chances. He knew it 
would have been suicide for the Germans to attempt resist- 
ance at the last moment, but are there no moments when 
brave men may prefer death to dishonor? So, as the Brit- 
ish and American fleets prepared to receive the surrender, 
they were also prepared for action. Their decks were 
stripped, their battle flags were hoisted, ammunition for 
the big guns was in the turrets, and every officer and man 
was ready. 

" The plan was that the Germans should reach the 
rendezvous, sixty miles out, at eight o'clock in the morn- 
ing. All but their destroyers were to form in a long 
column headed by the British light cruiser Cardiff. First 
came the battle cruisers, then the battleships, three cables 
apart, then after a gap of three miles the light cruisers at 
the same interval, and last, three miles astern, the destroyers 
in groups of five. The Cardiff was to regulate their move- 
ments, and get, if possible, twelve knots out of them. All 
their big guns were to be trained inboard. Meanwhile on 
either side of their course, the Grand Fleet was to stand out 
and meet them in two long columns. Light cruisers were to 
lead the van, and behind them were the battleships, and 
behind these again other battle cruisers and light cruisers. 
Two great columns, each at least twenty miles long, were 
thus to be formed, and between them, under constant sur- 
veillance all the way, the German ships were to sail. 

" There was to be no communication between them and 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 299 

the Allies. They were to be left completely alone, and had 
only to obey signals and take up the anchorage assigned 
to them. 

" Long before dawn this morning the Grand Fleet got 
under way to go down to the appointed place. Thirty- 
three battleships, nine battle cruisers, five cruisers and 
thirty-one light cruisers were to take part in the great 
, triumph, and it takes a long time to move a mighty fleet 
like that in single file. It was a wonderful sight to watch 
them slip away in the small hours of the morning. There 
was a full moon, but the sky was overcast. For over six 
hours the British and American ships were picking their 
way down the Firth and maneuvering to assume the two- 
column formation. From time to time through the air 
came signals from the Germans announcing exactly where 
they were and what progress they were making. 

"At 8 : 18 o'clock the German commander reported he 
could not make the twelve knots required, but only ten. 
Everything was going well, but it was not until 9:15 that 
(the Germans were first made out from the Grand Fleet. 
They were holding strictly to their course and steaming 
steadily ahead in excellent order, but from the northern 
column, at any rate la^jking into the sun and across the 
mists, they seemed very ghosts of a fighting force. They 
■were dim and shadowy and were barely discernible against 
the gray sea. Above them floated a British observation 
balloon and a dirigible, but they made no signals and paid 
no attention to any one. 

" After they had passed the cruiser they met the famous 
fifth British battle squadron which once before had come 
across them and left its mark upon them. They were the 
Barham, Valiant, Warspite and the Malaya, ships which 
Tushed at the battle of Jutland to the rescue of the battle 



300 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

cruisers. Then they were sheathed in smoke and fire; to- 
day they stood out in the sunlight glistening as if with 
silver, and gay with signaling flags — sturdy and solid- 
looking craft they were. Then next behind them came 
five tall ships from across the Atlantic, with Stars and 
Stripes floating proudly from each of their masts and 
flaunting as well from the latticewok of their mainmasts. 
If the Germans used their glasses they must have seen their 
decks almost bare of figures, but their fighting tops crowded 
with them at their stations and their big guns ready to be 
swung round at a second's notice. 

" To the trained sailor's eye they represented warships 
ready for instantaneous battle. 

" * It is the proudest moment in my life,' said an Ameri- 
can officer as he looked through the mist at the German 
fleet slinking into inglorious safety, and again at the line 
of American ships keeping perfect distance and direction 
as they followed the flagship New York. 

" But even when the two powerful squadrons had gone 
by, the Germans had still to pass the nine battleships of 
the second battle squadron. Admiral Beatty's flagship, the 
Queen Elizabeth, and four ships of the first battle cruiser 
squadron and the Lion, as well as the fourth light cruiser 
squadron. Moreover, what the Germans saw on their star- 
board bow clearly enough in the sun, they knew was re- 
peated on their other quarter, even though it was shadowed 
by the mists. They were steaming between two mighty 
fleets, which could blow them out of the water in five min- 
utes. And it was of their own volition. This is what the 
ceremony of today seemed especially designed to bring out 
— that the surrender of the German fleet was a voluntary 
act on their part, and that there was no reason why they 
should have done it if they had not been afraid to fight. 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 301 

After a time the British columns turned and accompanied 
their prisoners back, each separate squadron wheeling out 
of line and back again so as to reverse the order of the 
whole array without altering that of each unit. But through 
it all the Germans kept plodding on. No one apparently 
gave them orders; no one coerced them; they were self- 
confessed in defeat and fleeing to safety while there was yet 
time. 

" The ceremony was almost terribly impersonal, so os- 
tentatiously did the Grand Fleet keep its hands off its 
prisoners. It had been at grips with the Germans before, 
and now it was content to let them pass and leave them 
alone. 

" As the Germans drew nearer their anchorage the humili- 
ating nature of their plight must have come home still more 
sharply to them. As it chanced, it was necessary for the 
three lines of vessels to come closer together. The north 
and south columns of the Grand Fleet sheered in toward 
the German, and it seemed as though it was merely one 
division of a mighty fighting force. 

" The German ships were still flying their battle flags. 
Their guns ran out stiffly from their turrets, and their low 
silhouettes showed how skillfully they had been designed as 
war machines. 

" They were keeping a beautiful formation as regards 
distance, and there was nothing to suggest what they were, 
yet every mile was bringing them nearer hopeless and pro- 
longed captivity, and all their professional skill served only 
to aid their enemies in putting them easily into confinement. 
So as they reached their anchorage in the Firth, some miles 
below the Forth Bridge, in obedience to orders from the 
British, they split up into several lines and came to a halt. 
There they lay, motionless and harmless, and the British 



302 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

and American victors swept by, leaving them to the care 
of guardships. This afternoon Sir David Beatty sent to 
Admiral von Eeuter this order: 

" ' The German flag is to be hauled down at 5:57 to- 
day (that is, sundown). It is not to be hoisted again with- 
out permission.' 

" Before many days the German ships will be moved 
under close guard in small detachments to that delightful 
winter resort, Seapa Flow, in the bleak Orkneys, where 
they will be able to meditate for weeks and months on 
what British and American seamen dared to endure to cut 
their claws." 

By way of contrast to the exultant note of the 
victor's description of the ceremonies of the sur- 
render it is interesting to quote some portions from 
the diary of one of the German naval officers who 
was present, which were printed originally in a 
Berlin newspaper: 

"Sunday, Nov. 17. — Clouds of smoke and soot lie over 
the war harbor. ... It was often so during the war when 
the fleet was suddenly going out for some undertaking, or 
the enemy was reported out at sea by our aircraft, or ad- 
vance patrols. But today it is quite difl'erent; the High 
Seas Fleet is beginning its last cruise — ^^surrendering to 
the enemy. For four years I have shared victory and want 
with my crew, and I won't leave them in the lurch at the 
end. Going on board is hard. The red flag is still flying 
there, a sign of all that has happened in these last weeks. 
The crew is serious and quiet ; most of them feel how great 
is the disgrace. 

"Monday, Nov. 19.— . . . The undefeated German fleet 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 303 

is going out to meet the enemy who anxiously avoided it 
for four years and says to him, ' Here take us ; you have 
won the game only too brilliantly.' ... I wept and I am 
not ashamed of it. 

" Tuesday, Nov. 20. — Soon after noon we put to sea. 
Not racing ahead as before, but crawling slowly. We must 
save as much coal as possible. . . . No look out for sub- 
marines now and no manning of the guns. I cannot help 
asking myself how we have earned such an end and whether 
all our brave seamen are lying for nothing at the bottom of 
the sea? 

"Thursday, Nov. 21. — On Wednesday morning one of 
our destroyers struck a mine and sunk. Many are already 
lying down there, and many more will follow when the 
mine-sweeping begins again. At 8 o'clock we are at the 
appointed place. The first English destroyer soon comes in 
sight. My heart beats furiously. If we had still our tor- 
pedoes aboard I think that the destroyer would have known 
it. So it is a good thing that we left every weapon behind. 
The destroyers surround us on every side; we are a pro- 
cession of prisoners. Our large ships are convoyed in the 
same way by the English battleship and cruiser squadrons. 
The English stood at their battle stations with gas masks on. 
They simply could not understand that we should surrender 
without a blow. The English ships are freshly painted. 
The men are in their best clothes. Everything is arranged 
to impress us. Slowly we proceed to our anchoring place in 
the Firth of Forth. Nothing to be seen of the land ; typical 
English fog. Airmen circle round us, playing all sorts of 
games. One of them who intended to make a particularly 
bold movement falls straight into the sea. An airship also, 
wabbling clumsily, feels it necessary to show us — how well 
built our Zeppelins are. 



304 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

"Friday, Nov. 22. — The search commission is on board. 
I speak with the English officers only to say what is abso- 
lutely necessary. With me they will have no occasion to 
disobey their strict order not to fraternize with the Ger- 
mans. Apparently they are less concerned to discover 
whether we really have no ammunition and weapons on 
board than to spy out our equipment. They have little 
luck in this. All the things which they would so much have 
liked to see and about which they constantly asked — instru- 
ments for measuring distance, electrical apparatus, and 
especially the ^ smoke ' apparatus — stayed behind at Wil- 
helmshaven. So they can only observe that we have very 
pretty guns. For a long time they racked their brains 
about certain other parts of our armament, the use of 
which they do not understand. ' Unhappily ' I do not know 
enough English to explain. Today my English is for the 
most part limited to ' yes ' and ^ no.' 

"Sunday, Nov. 24. — The German fleet is being taken 
to Scapa Elow. There is no further question of our going 
to a neutral port. If it must be an English port I like 
Scapa Flow best, for up there there is at least no mob to 
laucrh at us.'* 



Although not wholly pertinent to the story of the 
work of our navy in the war it may be noted that 
the Germans concluded their naval record with an 
act of perfidy, which may justly be described as 
characteristic. The terms of the treaty had been 
determined upon and promulgated. They compelled 
the reduction of the German navy to six battle- 
ships, six light cruisers and twelve torpedo boats. 
The fortifications of Heligoland must be disman- 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 305 

tied — this has already been done — and the Germans 
were forbidden to build any torpedo boats what- 
ever. Before this treaty was actually signed, on 
June 21, but while they were still bound by the 
terms of the armistice, the German crews in charge 
of the ships interned at Scapa Flow, acting upon 
orders from superior officers, opened the sea-cocks 
of most of the ships and sunk them at their moor- 
ings. It was an act in contravention of all tenets 
of naval honor, but it was loudly boasted of in 
Berlin as an evidence of the determination of Ger- 
man officers never to give up the ships, and to go 
down with colors flying. As a matter of fact the 
colors had been hauled down months before, and 
the devoted scuttlers of surrendered ships eagerly 
sought rescue by boats from the British ships on 
guard. 

Thus ended, ignominously enough, Germany's 
challenge to the world for supremacy upon the 
High Seas. How much that ambition cherished by 
the Kaiser had to do with bringing on the war is 
well worth consideration. That it greatly con- 
tributed to the English hostility to Germany long 
before the war was declared does not admit of 
doubt. No one can read the portions of this story 
devoted to the submarine operations without seeing 
that considerations of self-preservation compel 
Great Britain to keep her navy first on the ocean. 
Unable to feed the people of the British Isles on the 
products of their home fields she is dependent 
upon ocean carriage for food. Interrupt her ocean 



306 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

routes and she will starve. When therefore any 
nation openly challenges British control of the sea 
she menaces the very life of the British nation. In 
the case of Germany this challenge came from a 
people who were notoriously militant and who, 
under the rule of an arrogant and ambitious Kaiser 
were a source of uneasiness to lovers of peace the 
world over. Under that leadership they had re- 
pulsed British overtures for the limitation of naval 
armaments and gave every indication of preparing 
for an assault upon the world. 

Accordingly when that assault came Great 
Britain threw her strength to the side of the Allies. 
The ostensible reason was the violation of Belgian 
neutrality. But there is reason to doubt whether, 
had Belgium been respected by the Kaiser's armies. 
Great Britain could have afforded to stand by and 
see Germany crush western Europe and proceed 
with her ambition to contest the sovereignty of 
the seas. But that contest was settled for many a 
year and decade to come by the surrender at Scapa 
Flow. 

While we are accustomed to look upon the part 
played by the American navy in this war as 
one involving endurance rather than fighting 
qualities, its losses nevertheless were consider- 
able. 

These tables, from the report of Secretary 
Daniels to President Wilson, show the number of 
American vessels sunk by the enemy, their tonnage 
and the number of lives lost: 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 307 

NAVAL VESSELS 

No. of Tonnage Lives 

Vessels Losij 
From April 6, 1917, to Nov. 11, 1918: 

By submarines 14 103,583 677 

By mines 5 45,356 54 

By collision 15 30,794 65 

Miscellaneous 14 31,128 346 



53,671 

10,770 

3,374 


63 
4 



67,815 


67 


244,385 
4,388 


342 



248,773 


342 


315,588 
210,861 


409 
1,144 



Total 48 210,861 1,142 

MERCHANT VESSELS 
From August, 1914, to April 6, 1917: 

By submarines 15 

By mines 5 

By German cruiser Eitel Friedrich. ... 1 

Total 21 

From April 6, 1917, to Nov. 11, 1918: 

By submarines 124 

By raiders 6 

Total 130 

Total number of merchant vessels 151 

Total number of naval vessels 48 

Grand total 199 526,449 1,553 

TROOPSHIPS 
The Antilles, President Lincoln and Covington were the only 
actual troopships lost in the war by the cruiser and transport 
force. The Westbridge, a cargo carrier, reached a French port. 
The Mt. Vernon also got to port. The armored cruiser San Diego 
was destroyed by a mine laid by a submarine off the American 
"coast. 

Ships Date 

Antilles Oct. 17, 1917 (torpedoed) 

Pres. Lincoln May 31, 1918 " 

Covington July 1, 1918 " 

Westbridge ' Aug. 15, 1918 

Mt. Vernon Sept. 5, 1918 " 

Saetia Nov. 9,1918 Mined 

Herman Frasch .. Oct. 4, 1918 (collision) 

(army transport) (internal 

Ophir Nov. 11, 1918- explosion) 7,089 



Gross 


Lives 


Tons 


Lost 


6,878 


67 


18,167 


26 


16,339 


6 


5,660 


4 


18,372 


36 


2,873 





3,803 


16 



308 BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 

The war which Germany had hoped to win on the 
sea was finally lost by her on the land, to which 
she had turned again despairingly when the success 
of the convoy system, for which American initiative 
was largely responsible, ended her hope of starving 
England into subjection. 

Military historians will point to the check ad- 
ministered to the final despairing German drive at 
Chateau-Thierry, and at Belleau Wood as the be- 
ginning of the end. 

If so the United States navy, through its Marine 
Corps, was engaged in both battles and was a very 
efficient factor in that conclusion. 

It may be urged that the threat which actually 
compelled the enemy's appeal for an armistice was 
that expressed in the advance of the American 
army through the Argonne, menacing Sedan, Metz 
and the vital communications of Hindenburg's 
army. 

If that be conceded the navy has still a right to 
share in the glory for it was its great guns, mounted 
on railroad cars, and served by navy gunners, that 
had cut to pieces the enemy's railroad communica- 
tions, torn up his junctions, demolished his supply 
bases, and were ready to open on Metz itself when 
the appeal for a cessation of hostilities came from 
the German High Command. 

But more than either of these causes of German 
collapse was the steady, unrelenting, unescapable 
pressure of the blockade upon Germany. It under- 
mined the morale of the people behind the armies, 



BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 309 

denying them food, clothing, the necessaries of life 
and all of its comforts. It handicapped the armies 
by creating a desperate scarcity of such fundamen- 
tal factors in munitions and equipment as oil, 
rubber, cotton and copper. It compelled the Teu- 
tons to fight to the east, seeking supplies from 
Russia, the Balkans and even Asia Minor when vic- 
tory could only be won by the concentration of 
their power on the Western Front. 

In this blockade our navy took only a minor 
part. It was established by the British navy an 
hour after war was declared, and was maintained 
with inflexible determination and unfaltering pur- 
pose until after the conclusion of peace. We were 
a part of it after our entrance upon the war, but 
its work had been mainly done before we came in. 
Yet it is worthy of attention in this story of the 
part played by the United States navy because of 
the lessons which the effects of that blockade may 
teach to our advantage. 

It was an American admiral who first wrote for 
the instruction of the world upon the influence of 
Sea Power upon History. Had Admiral Mahan 
lived to interpret the lessons of the World 
War he would have strengthened enormously 
the position to which he had already converted 
the thinking world. For it was sea power, 
more than anything else, which defeated the 
Teutonic powers. 

And this may be said without detracting in the 
least degree from the devotion, the efficiency or the 



310 BLUE JACKETS OF 1918 

glory of the millions of brave men who laid down 
their lives on the battlefield. 

Suppose that England had had no navy, or one so 
small that Germany could cripple or evade it. Sup- 
pose if you will that the United States, instead of 
Great Britain, had been the first ally of France. 

Instead of landing millions of men on French 
soil without loss as England did first, and we later, 
the task of furnishing any military aid would have 
been almost insurmountable. German battleships 
and cruisers would have been there to be dealt with, 
in addition to the stealthy submarines. Even if the 
German navy were defeated in battle it could 
hardly be without inflicting crippling wounds on 
the victor, and one or two German raiders afloat 
would have put an abrupt check to the ferriage of 
troops. 

Had Germany not been confronted by an over- 
whelming naval power there would have been not 
enough munitions in the Allied lines during the 
first two years of the war. It is a matter of history 
that much of the success of the rush of von Kluck 
upon Paris in 1914 was due to the scarcity of muni- 
tions in the French and British lines, while it was 
to the same suicidal lack that was due their failure 
to crush the enemy after his defeat by Joffre at 
the Marne. Not until the host of munition fac- 
tories in the United States, working night and day, 
began turning out shells, shrapnel, TNT, gun- 
powder, rifles and arms of every sort and kind were 
the Allied armies able to withstand the German on- 



BLUE JACKETS OP 1918 311 

slaught. But if the power of the British navy had 
not assured reasonably safe transport across the 
ocean for these munitions of war Germany could 
have overrun Europe, and done her will upon 
civilization. 

These are facts that it will be well for the people 
of the United States to keep clearly in mind as 
year after year the temptation grows to cut down 
in time of peace the appropriation for the navy. In 
time perhaps the common sense of nations will 
lead to a general movement for the limitation of 
navies. Perhaps in due season the League of Na- 
tions, about which after the late war political con- 
troversy raged so fiercely, may be developed to the 
point of ending all wars. But that time is still 
far distant. Until it shall arrive no nation with 
the widely extended coast line of the United States, 
no nation with colonial possessions separated from 
the mother country by thousands of miles of sea 
can afford to be without adequate naval force. 
More than once we have owed safety to the friend- 
ship of Great Britain and the power of her navy. 
But it is not well to be too sure that international 
friendships will endure forever. 



END 



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